Possession
by UsedtoEatAssThriceaMonth
Summary: A different race, a different class, a different path... what if Momonga walked the path of a warrior? A tale of the God of Swords, a tale of the Demon God, and a tale of a lonely man searching for a friend... Watch out, New World, your strength is nothing. Ainz x ? [Image by jazzjack-KHT on Deviantart] Re: Wait, why is my human self here?
1. A God Awakens

**Disclaimer: This work is purely fictional. Sections have been rewritten to avoid plagiarism with fan translations and the official Light Novel series of Overlord. Overlord, the Light Novel translation is licensed by Yen Press. Please consider purchasing a copy of Overlord to support the author.**

* * *

 **Volume 1-The Warrior and the Host**

The dark night of Helheim was all that the party could see. They were adventurers; fresh off the hook of training, having defeated several gods with the assistance of other similarly leveled adventurers. They were here because they had received a request from the jobs board.

The request was odd. "Investigate the undead ruins", the description read. Normally, large ruins were involved with large campaigns or lootings. However, this time, it seemed there was nothing of the sort. Their leader, a knight adorned in adamantite-red armor, had decided that this must be a lower-tiered dungeon.

Their assumptions were not wrong as the seeker returned. Only meager death knights and armored skeletons were seen. In a moment's time, they broke through the cover of the wicked forest and found themselves before a large Parthenon-shaped structure. In front of the Parthenon was a swarm of undead.

"No need for a plan here. Attack!" The knight raised his sword in confidence, seeing only cannon fodder.

The adventurers each gave their own battle cry as they charged. The assassin disappeared from vision, reappearing seconds later in an attack that destroyed several skeletons. The gargantuan man, their tank, leaped into the air and performed a devastating slam attack purchased from his [Dreadnought] class.

At the same time, a man in white armor armed with a stave, their cleric, twirled his staff and the skeletons were purified in holy light. The wizard of their group similarly held a staff, but on top of it sat an eye-shaped gem that opened its gaze, disintegrating a wave of undead.

As their leader ducked under a slash from a death knight, the assassin strode behind it and the undead was no more. Not a second later, however, it was walking once again. The seeker, surprised, cast [Discern Enemy]. He breathed in relief finding that the undead only had a single hit-point left. He dismissed the revival as a special skill.

Just as they were about to challenge the rest of the undead, a thundering clap could be heard and dust kicked up all around them. The seeker and assassin were first to react, having skills that would allow them to see through things that obscured their vision. However, they were no less shocked than the rest of their team when the dust cleared.

In the place of their tank, there was a gigantic greatsword plunged into the ground. However, they could all see the health bar of their teammate disappear and the notification that announced his death.

"A-a single hit?" The knight breathed.

The witch cast [All Appraisal Magic Item], earning the team another shocked gasp.

"D-divine ranked?" She breathed, seeing the weapon's incredible stats.

"I'll go get it. Cover me!" The knight yelled. The team all obeyed, as they cast their buffs and formed a perimeter around their leader. However, that formation was broken without the tank.

Just as their leader was about to touch the sword, a black shadow loomed over him. He dismissed this as one of the poisonous clouds of YGGDRASIL, but that ignorance would cost him his life. Suddenly, a looming figure appeared by the sword. In a matter of milliseconds, it pulled the sword from the ground and bisected the knight. The adventurers all jumped to formation around the newly appeared warrior. He held two matching greatswords, each almost as tall as his gargantuan figure. A physical realization of the word "intimidating"...

"Tsk. Some low leveled filth attempting my dungeon..."

"L-low leveled?" The team turned to look at each other for help, but it was the cleric who spoke up.

"Listen up, guy. We're all level 75 here and even if we don't have a knight or proper tank, or even if you're higher level, we still outnumber you 5 to 1. Why don't you give up already, make everyone's job easier?"

Wrong answer.

The tall knight roared in laughter. "Such arrogance. I will have to put you in your place, then."

That was when the true slaughter began. With a speed barely conceived by any member of their team, the warrior dashed into the assassin. Despite having the highest speed and agility in her entire party, it did nothing to help with the pair of greatswords that chopped her in half. There was no warrior skill used, no incantation. There were only stats and that man's insane reaction rate, they realized.

The flame warrior was next. Despite his size and heavy armor, he was taken out with a single pair of swings from the greatswords. His body dissipated into vapor, only the clattering of his axe and a pouch of coins on the ground showing that there had been someone here before.

"Stay back!" The wizard roared, recasting her buffs and sending a torrent of destructive energy towards the enemy. She blinked as she saw that there were no hitmarkers in sight. The knight burst from the cloud of energy, ending her with one stroke of his sword.

A staff and a pouch of coins clattered to the ground.

The seeker only wished to escape now. Grabbing his fallen friend's dagger, he sent a torrent of knives and thrown skills towards the knight. The cleric, on the other hand, hissed as he once again tried to resurrect his teammates, finding no luck.

"Hoh, what fools. A simple cash item would have solved the problem. Do you young people really have somewhere to go that isn't YGGDRASIL?"

The remaining adventurers blanched. Was this guy for real?

"As I thought. Goodbye now." The knight muttered, throwing one of his swords towards the seeker, pinning his bodies to the ground and killing him instantaneously.

"Not even a real fight… I wish the weapons throwing aspect of [Olympian] wasn't so overpowered."

But then again, anything that would improve his chances of victory was welcomed.

He was cut off from his musings as he sighted the cleric dashing away, desperately mashing on the "logout" button. The countdown timer floated over his head, a bright "23" in golden letters.

Sighing, the warrior disappeared from sight and reappeared again beside his sword. Drawing it from the ground, he chucked the blade towards the cleric.

* * *

A pitch black obsidian table gleamed as it stood at the center of a huge chamber, surrounded by walls of gold-trimmed magnificence. If one were to just focus on one side of the room, they might even come to the conclusion that the room had windows, judging by the naturally bright colors. That would be a common mistake, however. The creator of these chambers was a master of lighting effects, who believed in true ambiance like his name would suggest.

The table itself was not to be scoffed at, either. It had the diameter of at least a whole house and was surrounded by forty-one crimson clothed throne-chairs, each scaled to a size which

suggested that they were not meant for a man.

On one of these seats sat a strange entity.

It was an oddly... surreal being, its figure giving the appearance of an extremely tall knight cut out in sharp armor, but its color was what gave it the difference. No glint or flash of metal could be seen anywhere on the entity; only darkness, and nothing else. It did not seem to be a shadow demon, however, as one could still roughly make out the dimensions of its armor.

The darkness that radiated from the being clung back to its owner, keeping its shape and forming the sharp edges of the knight armor. Its massive pauldrons could be called blades on their own, despite the shadows that would usually mean softness. Well, could this simply be a man clad in strange armor, you ask?

Its… no, his head was what truly threw out all perceptions that this was a human. Instead of a regularly shaped helmet, the headgear had two triangular armored growths extended at 60 degrees as if they were to contain a demon's horns. But his eyes; two right-angled triangles of an ominous glowing red; not glaring, just watching, were the centerpieces of the artwork.

"I see… So, herohero-san, will you be staying?"

The dark entity spoke with a surprisingly friendly voice, his head turning towards the only other filled chair in the pristine chamber.

"No… Sorry, Momonga-san, it's about time for me to log off. I'm about to fall asleep any time now. You know how it feels to wake up plugged into the console, right?"

The purplish-black goo raised a hand as if waving a melancholic goodbye. The mass of darkness nodded with a polite grunt, showing his sympathy.

"I really did want to stay with you until the end, though. But I really can't do this now. I've worn my body out too much."

The being, now identified as Herohero, waved his "limbs" again, this time disappointedly.

"I don't mind, to be honest. I'm sure work is more important than this." Momonga replied, breaking the awkward pause. He didn't know what it was, but the words came out with an unintended tone of hurt barely controlled within. The Elder Ooze, sensing this, panicked briefly and moved in to apologize.

"Don't feel too down. I'm glad, and I'm sure everyone else will be glad that you've kept such

good care of this place…"

Perhaps it was not the best apology, but Suzuki Satoru took it anyways. He didn't know this, but outside, in the real world, a lone tear had trickled its way out of the blue Dive headset. He agreed nonetheless, feeling nostalgic pride swelling within his chest.

"Putting that 100 physical attack power to good use, eh?" The Elder Ooze jeered.

For the first time in their whole (depressing) conversation, the two guildmates shared a small laugh, uncaring as to how corny or bad the joke was. Momonga envisioned in his mind a tall statue of darkness, blazing across the halls of Nazarick swiftly with a broom and rag in hand, leaving no corner untouched by the forces of cleanliness.

"Ah, this was good, guild leader-san. Are you staying until the end?" Herohero approached this time more casually and with a light spirit.

After a short, and to Momonga's disappointment, a rather meaningless conversation filled with praises from the Elder Ooze and Momonga explaining his duties as guild-master to take care of the tomb, the Elder Ooze raised a hand and tapped the space in front of him, drawing up the game's console.

"Well, this is it, Momonga-san. Let's keep in touch… maybe somewhere IRL, or perhaps in YGGDRASIL Mk. II."

Herohero's arm moved to a button at the bottom of the hologram...

[Herohero has logged out]

[You've been playing for more than 1.5 hours now. Don't forget to take a break!]

Momonga dismissed the notifications with a swipe of his hand.

The room was silent once more.

As meaningless as Herohero's visit was from an outsider perspective, for Momonga, it had been excellent. He got to vent some of his pent-up feelings about his former guildmates. The feelings of abandonment… it had never really developed into hate, but for anyone, having a friend's ear to vent on was the best a friend could do.

Not like he would know anything about friendship, Momonga's critical size scoffed.

As he stared upon the meeting room for what he felt like was probably the last time, the warrior thought of his guildmate Blue Planet. Such a… what a wonderful time that was, when the nature lover would spend hours upon hours perfecting the lighting effects of Nazarick, as well as the skies of the sixth floor…

Momonga shook his head, Blue Planet was last heard of to be doing professional graphic designs for advertisements and such. He was sure he had seen an ad with a similar theme to the sixth floor before, so he took those rumors as fact.

The knight stood from his seat slowly, pushing the chair back in. Before he could do so, however, a maid rushed into the room, pushing he and Herohero's seat back to their original positions with an impossible accuracy. And just like that, it was done. With a bow, the blonde vacated the room, leaving Momonga in awkward silence.

He followed a moment later, pushing the heavy doors open and stepping onto the red-carpeted palace-like halls of Nazarick. He turned his head back to the maid as he walked in the opposite direction towards the throne room.

"Thank you for your hard work, Sixth…"

He could have been hallucinating in his loneliness then, but at that moment, he swore he could hear the maid turn and look at him in surprise.

 _Maybe it happens when you say their names?_

Momonga shrugged, continuing the walk.

[11:30:53]

With a stretch of his arms, Momonga moved into the throne room, his body easily pushing the grand doors open despite their gargantuan size. Leaving the defender golems behind him, he couldn't help but gasp in fascination at the throne room. He'd only seen this place a couple of times before, deciding to save the best for the last. He wanted this to be his last memory in YGGDRASIL. He wanted this to be special.

Approaching the throne with the swagger of a king, Momonga plopped himself onto the throne, finding some comfort despite not really feeling much due to the Dive system's lack of capability in mimicking the sense of touch. He rested the side of his head on his arm.

"[Appraisal Eye]..."

A large eyeball, the size of a large fist, with red, fleshy stems attached, materialized above his head and floated down to his side. The green eye hovered beside his own cutely.

Ah, his favorite pet… since the familiar was summoned through an item, it could easily be

respawned without penalty. Not only could it cast [All Appraisal Magic Item] among various other spells, it could also cast enemy scanning spells like [Discern Enemy] a limited number of times per day.

His own eyes caught hold of the beauty in white dress standing beside him, however.

"Albedo, was it? What were her settings again?"

He already knew the answer, but his curiosity had gotten the best of him yet. One could not simply deny the temptation to peek into a woman's profile.

"Wow, that's a lot of settings… Probably on the level of an actual person. Speaking of settings, didn't Tabula-San, the settings maniac make her? And… what is this? A world item? She's not supposed to have this!"

However, his mouth couldn't help but water slightly at the sight of Ginnungagap in Albedo's hands. The weapon was one of the two hundred world items that existed. It did not do as much damage as a well-built divine class weapon of the same design, but its main jewel laid within its ability to easily destroy any structures. He and Punitto Moe had discussed the tactical value of this siege weapon before, but they ultimately decided to only bring this for guild takedowns.

"I'm sure he won't mind if I take it? After all… you know what? Never mind. It's not like I'll have much time to test this out anyways."

He glanced at the white succubus's stoic face, who was armed with a peaceful smile that could charm anyone.

"Hehehe…" Momonga suddenly had an idea as he hurriedly scrolled down the list of settings.

 _She is also a slut._

 _She is also a_

 _She is also_

 _She is_

 _She is in love_

 _She is in love with Momonga._

"Uwah… so embarrassing." He basked fully in his stupidity, shaking his head in shame.

"Not like it's going to matter."

That's right, the character settings really meant nothing. "Settings" was just another word for backstory and did nothing to dictate the behaviors of the NPCs themselves. That would be the custom combat AI and behavioral AI menus. Momonga himself decked his own NPCs with what must have been several hundred emotes, each dramatic dances and gestures.

With a depressed sigh, Momonga called forward a floating screen, swiping away from the newsletter section and onto his character screen. There, at the center of it, was a tall knight who was the night itself. To the left of his player name, which was just below his feet, there was an obsidian black icon without features adorned with two horns on its head. He swiped through his various disguises, finding himself not in the mood for any of them.

With a disappointed feeling, he closed the screen with a swipe of his hand.

"Oh, I have an idea." A light bulb popped into existence over his head.

"[Biotic Armor: Mystify]!"

And with that, the cosmetic effects were disabled.

The "armor" of darkness loosened, gaining a dark purplish tone and vibrant set of gleam. His eyes stopped glowing, and tendrils of darkness swam. If one were to carefully look, they would be able to see the actual gleam of armor underneath the swimming tendrils of half-darkness. He was almost like a high level possessed armor… except that was not his chosen race.

"Well, this is it. I should really call over the NPCs now." Momonga muttered to himself.

He sat there, humming for a moment.

"Oh shit! How could I forget!"

With a startled leap, Momonga burst from his throne in a rush of surprising speed, pushing past NPCs in the halls of Nazarick. Within minutes, he found himself inside the meeting room again, this time with a strong heartbeat. Momonga felt his real self breathe heavily.

"Hoh… and here it is!"

At one of the sides of the meeting chamber, was a half-cylindrical opening. Within revealed a magnificent piece of artwork. The sword itself was a beauty beyond imagination; a blade, intricately carved with countless shifts in shape. Seven curves of masterful engravings, each depicting a serpent, raced down the sword with perfect symmetry. Every hole, every curve complemented the golden blade's beauty. An aura of death also radiated from its golden edge, starting out a dark red close to the sword and then changing to black, roughly tracing out the shape of the blade itself.

Its hilt, however, was the most breathtaking of all. Seven orbs of the purest jewels floated around it, perfectly arranged to surround the hilt. Momonga grasped the two-handed blade with both of his hands, despite the fact that he could easily wield it with one hand. He, however, just loved being reminded of "pulling the sword from the stone" scene from King Arthur.

With a faint click, the seven jewels flowed towards the hilt in perfect harmony, latching onto the sword's mechanisms. The sword's inner mechanisms rotated, not unlike a clockwork machine as its disk-like hilt collapsed towards the stabbing part of the blade, concealing the jewels and disguising the fact that it was a guild weapon.

The [Sword of Ainz Ooal Gown] was the masterpiece of all masterpieces, being the result of a whole year's worth of endless grinding by all of its forty-one members. The guildmates had played recklessly to craft this; using only the finest materials YGGDRASIL could offer. Some had spent their paid vacations to get this, some argued with their wives to make time, but in the end, it was worth it. It was the representation of the hardships and spirit of the entirety of Ainz Ooal Gown taken physical form, unlike Nazarick, which was mostly the result of the talented artists among them.

He lifted the blade as if drawing it from thin air. Then, he slashed downwards twice, drawing a gust of sharp wind and tracing an "x" in the air with the deathly aura the blade's tip left behind. Momonga chuckled, feeling empowered.

The guild weapon's sister blade was hidden within his inventory, but he didn't bring it out because it just felt cooler to have both of his hands stab the sword into the ground. Two large weapons, especially ones that looked different, did not look good on a person sitting on a throne if he held both of them.

"There's not much time left, huh? I suppose this will have to do, then."

His armored ring finger flashed for a moment and although there was no ring to be seen, any YGGDRASIL player could tell by its light that it was a guild ring working its magic as Momonga flashed to the throne room.

Taking seat once more, he opened up the master source and selected all of the Pleiades, including Sebas, who he felt was important, as the elderly man was Touch Me's creation. He typed in an order to have them all gather in the throne room.

"I hope they won't mind." He muttered to himself, guiltily sneaking a peek at Albedo. His instincts now scolded him to repair the mistake, but his brain noted the futility of such exercise.

Oh well, it looked like his conscience lost this time.

"What to do… what to do." Momonga felt an itch of restlessness, coupled with the uncomfortableness in sitting in a throne room alone and without another real person. He briefly thought of his mother, before shaking his head.

"Now's not the time."

Minutes later, just as Momonga was about to start swapping armor out of boredom, the battle maids, and Sebas opened the grand doors to the throne room, all walking with at the same pace in perfect single file; their motions polite yet robotic.

[12:48:32]

 _Just twelve minutes, huh._

Seeing all those NPCs, who were all the creations of his guildmates, he couldn't take it anymore. It made him think of the glory days. Of the good days. Days where he could mess around with all his friends, venting their frustrations onto the digital world and hunting down those blasted heteromorph exterminators.

With teeth gritted, he felt his real self's eyes moisten with tears. Why? Why couldn't they be here, just for the last time? Did they all abandon him? Even Touch, even Ulbert, did they all feel nothing as they abandon him? Hell anybody, even Luci fer; if anyone was here, he'd be glad!

Momonga took a deep breath.

His calls were still unanswered. He opened up his "social" tab again, nose stuffed and still panting from the tears and began scrolling. A small number of players on his friends list was still active, but most of these did not even reach the level of acquaintance anyways. More importantly, as he scrolled through the list, he noted the stark absence of any of his guildmates.

 _I should stop doing this. It's time for this to end. It was really fun while it lasted, everyone._

Leaning back against the throne, he peered up at the emblems hung onto the walls of the Lemegeton.

"Me. Touch Me. Herohero. Peroroncino. Bukubukuchagama. Tabula Smaragdina. Wizard Takemikazuchi. Variable Talisman. Genjiro-"

"B-bow" He sniffed, shaking his head.

The NPCs all fell to their knees.

[12:58:59]

 _I wonder if there'll be a post-game cutscene. Like the ones all MMORPGs have._

[12:59:10]

 _Would it show the highlights of my time here?_

[12:59:30]

 _Or would it be a teaser for YGGDRASIL Mk. II?_

[12:59:40]

 _I think it could be both._

[12:59:50]

 _But for some reason, I don't feel excitement at the thought of another game. Would I feel disappointed by what I find out about my guildmates? They all stopped playing, after all..._

[12:59:59]

 _Alright, let's take a look at the cutscene, then I guess I'll leave. I have to wake up at 4 tomorrow._

[00:00:00]

…

YGG-WRD?

-WRD_True(11)

YGG-TOP?

-GD(8)

-WRCHP(2*2, 4*3, 7*8)

GD-MMBRS?

-MMBRS(1)

True

Executing…

[00:00:00]

[00:00:01]

[00:00:02]

[00:00:03]

 _Huh? Is this the cutscene?_

Momonga was confused. He looked around the room, suddenly finding the graphics much clearer than before. The old animatedly vibrant graphics became much more… realistic, now with an incredible amount of detail in light and texture he could not have known before.

 _Is this the cutscene? If so, what are they trying to tell us? Did they make the graphics more realistic so emotional fans would have a better time switching back to reality? Or is this something else?_

He stared down at his hand and made a few grasping motions.

 _Is that air I feel?_

He then turned to instinctual memory, his right hand tapping thin air. Nothing happened.

 _Uwah… The console won't open!_

Oh, now he was intrigued, albeit not in a good way. Moving his right hand again, he traced the familiar gestures for the settings menu. As if feeding on his dread, and, dare he admit it, his panic, neither panel nor screen came into view.

He tried everything. Report abuse, pause, inventory. Nothing seemed to be functional.

"The {GM Call} function isn't working either…" Momonga muttered, trailing the last word with worry. He raised a hand to stroke his chin and froze.

 _T-this… How?_

He felt it. He felt all of it as he traced his head, feeling the misty tendrils of darkness crawl on his armored fingers. His senses were far more acute, too. He felt as if they could be amplified even further if he un-equipped his armor. As he looked towards his other hand, he realized that the throne's edge which he had been gripping so tightly applied actual pressure onto his hand. The smooth surface, the gold, the luxury. He could feel everything.

"Lord Momonga?" An angelic voice rang out.

He shifted in his seat in surprise, his senses immediately converging on the source of the voice.

He stared at the succubus long and hard, trying to discern anything. He held his breath, waiting, yet too afraid to confirm his suspicions himself.

"Lord Momonga?" Albedo spoke, this time with a cute tilt of her head. Momonga's brain lapsed.

"Lord Momonga! Is there something wrong?" The angelic demon cried out, moving closer to him; now right by his knee. A face of concern, genuine concern hung on her face.

As his eyes involuntarily moved down her body, Momonga's mind became a maelstrom of emotion. And as he was about to make a hasty retreat, he felt his back arch as a sharp pain stab its way into his neck. He heard the hissing of injectors and he felt hazy for a minute before his normal functions kicked back in. He breathed heavily, panting for air. Before he could freak out again, he noted something peculiar.

 _The expressions are all natural! Should I ask her to— No, what am I thinking? There's no way I could do that without freaking out. I have to try something else._

With bated breath, he leaned closer.

… And closer

… And closer

…Until he could feel the sound of her breath brush his ears. For some reason he couldn't divine, her breathing pattern had now become irregular.

He raised a palm and tenderly stroked Albedo's cheek, trailing his hand from eye level all the way to her neck. With an appalled expression, he could see that her face had heated up to the darkest shade of red and she squirmed in what looked like delight.

"Lord Momonga…" She breathed.

 _Holy shit, that would have counted as sexual harassment in YGGDRASIL. I know the system doesn't always detect that, but I deliberately made my motions very slowly. I can't be sure yet, but this can't be a new game. It would be a terrible marketing strategy._

Momonga knew his new theory would bite the dust if he groped someone and got suspended, but he just knew. He felt it. This was different.

"Ah…" Albedo smirked devilishly.

"So, Lord Momonga, what do you intend to do to me? Will you rava-"

The player choked internally, his eyeballs popped to the maximum as he realized that Sebas and the Pleiades were still in the room. He raised a hand to stop Albedo form continuing that line of thought and even though he didn't know what she meant by "ravage", he was sure it had no good will.

"W-we will discuss this at length… later." He coughed.

"My deepest apologies!" Albedo cried with conviction.

 _Um… Alright._

"Sebas?" He called out, though he was still deciding if it was okay to give orders.

 _Just do it, coward!_

"My Lord?" The butler replied, raising his head. He was still kneeling.

"Gather some seekers and confirm the settings around the tomb. I leave whether or not scouting is necessary up to you." He calmly explained, remembering how Punitto Moe would speak when giving out orders or explaining battle plans.

"Contact me if there is anything important. I think I'll be assembling the guardians in an hour or so." He bullshitted, though he probably felt that it would be nice to meet the most important NPCs. Maybe he should do a tour around the tomb some time. He had not done so for quite a while now, since he spent most of his time managing the guild's finances, maintaining it and doing public raids in his [Enochian] disguise.

While YGGDRASIL was hard on its heteromorph players, players could use disguise cosmetics and cash items or racial abilities to prevent getting recognized as a heteromorph and then PKed. Doppelgängers were already a given, but races like demons could also assume human form. Sure, they might be seen through by seekers in a public group, but there were repercussions for quitting public raid groups and PKing your own teammate, so only the toxic try-hards would actually do so.

"As you wish, Supreme Being," Sebas spoke, not a trace of emotion on his face, though he was definitely alive.

 _Eh? Supreme Being? Is that one of the things Tabula put in the settings? But didn't Touch Me design him?_

"O-okay. Pleiades, please guard the ninth floor against possible intruders."

"It will be done, my Lord!" They uniformly agreed.

The Pleiades each stood and bowed, leaving in a single line, though that line was no longer the perfect robotic column as it was previously. It felt much more pleasing to the eye, to be honest. Living beings (only technically, in the case of Yuri and Shizu) were much better than programs.

 _Let's review this… the NPCs came alive? And I am..._

He could feel it. As faint and natural-feeling it was, he knew his body was different now. The enhanced senses, the constantly flowing darkness, and also his sixth sense, which tugged at him like a daughter would do to her father, telling him that there was a demon beside him.

 _I became my game avatar, huh?_

He chuckled, earning a confused expression from Albedo.

 _So, if this is a new world, should I return to my old one? Let's ask Albedo. I believe Tabula set her up with a lot of intellect, as she is the guardian overseer._

"Albedo," He called, catching her attention. She probably sensed that he was going to ask a question, hence why she did not answer.

"Let's say… Hypothetically speaking, if you were transferred to another world, against your own will, would you return to your old one?" He managed to get out, nearly falling over his own words.

 _This is awkward. I can see why I didn't have any friends IRL._

"I wish to go to whatever world that my Lord, my beloved Momonga, resides in so I can serve him for eternity. Nothing shall stop me except the words of a Supreme Being." She answered automatically, almost like the words were written into her own settings. Well, it would have looked like that if there wasn't so much emotion when she said "Momonga".

 _That doesn't help at all! I really shouldn't have dirtied Tabula's NPC!_

Momonga coughed, though it was very forced, raising a fist to his mouth, as if deep in thought.

"Umu. I see. Well then, gather all the floor guardians except Gargantua and Victim to the sixth floor. Something great has happened… I can feel it!" He spoke with fake enthusiasm, putting extra emphasis on what he hoped was the important words. He didn't give many presentations in the company he worked for, so he hoped his speechcraft was still somewhat good.

"Yes, my Lord!"

As the NPCs dispersed to do their tasks, the player gave a relieved sigh. It looked like the {Console} function was no more, but items? Those were probably still functional, judging by how he felt the power of the accessories flowing through himself and how the maid uniforms seemed harder than steel. Deciding not to arm himself, Momonga focused on the [Ring of Ainz Ooal Gown] and focused his thoughts on a location.

* * *

"Welcome to the floor which we guard, Lord Momonga!" The dark elf cheerily greeted, meeting the warrior with an enthusiastic smile.

"Greetings, Aura. Where's your brother?"

Aura blanched and after noticing the absence of her brother, however, her mood changed for the worse. Not wanting to cause any further trouble, Mare awkwardly jumped down from the VIP box, adjusting his skirt and trying not to kick up too much dust as he ran. Momonga had an amused smile as he viewed the twin crossdressers.

"Well, you two, sorry to intrude—"

"Nonsense, Lord Momonga! You are the master of this glorious dungeon; anyone would be honored by your presence!" Aura yelled, hands balled into fists.

"... I see. Well, there is thi—"

"Ooh! Ooh! Is that the sword only you, the leader of the Supreme Beings can wield, a sword of unparalleled power?"

"... Indeed…" Momonga sweated, after having just moved the sword from his inventory. He had played around with his personal storage in the arena entrance. He couldn't say that he had it nailed down just yet, but he felt using it regularly would just take some more experimentation and practice.

The [Sword of Ainz Ooal Gown] had no sheath to match its looks and power, the reason being mostly that if someone wanted to make a set with combination bonuses, sheathes and sheath-shields required at least 90% of the weapon's quality rating. Sure, something similar to [Avalon] for the guild weapon would massively increase his own power, but to do that, he would need seven more god-level items to craft it. This way, it was usually better to just beef up the sword as much as possible.

Dual links, on the other hand… Momonga stopped himself from thinking so much.

Momonga had spent the years where he was alone optimizing his build for solo play… After much testing, his final decision was to devote combat to abilities to defense in a roughly 5:4:3 ratio.

Back to the matter on hand, Momonga no longer felt the urge to brag about the weapon's functions. He was going to do it on instinct, but he didn't want to be interrupted again. He waited until the twins finished with their ramblings and spoke again.

"As you may know, this weapon has not seen much action. I wish to run some tests with it." He was conflicted as to whether or not to explain further like any good boss would do, but after seeing the twins' full belief in his wisdom, he felt it would be awkward to do so.

 _Wait, I'll have to act like a leader in front of them, right? Uwah… looks like I'm not off the hook of responsibility yet!_

After realizing he was in a position he was neither prepared for nor had knowledge in, he sweated internally.

 _At least we'll find out if my skills can work._

* * *

The two dragon-kin marched with a cumbersome stride, both carrying bulky humanoid statues of metal, each adorned with a jewel on where their faces would be.

These were golems.

In YGGDRASIL, the golem was a playable heteromorphic race, but anyone with a good crafting skill could make golems as well, though they were just NPCs that could help in combat or carry things around. CZ2128, for example, was a mid-tier golem gunner/assassin hybrid.

As the two dragonkin set the golems down, Momonga couldn't help but sweat for the umpteenth time in a single day.

 _Uwah… that looks expensive!_

The golems selected were around level 60, but they possessed numerous tanking skills equivalent to that of a level 70 monster. Their bodies, while not made out of any high tier prismatic ore, still valued in the hundred thousand range and that was ignoring the giant gems larger than human heads that served as their core.

 _Is it really okay to break them?_

"The golems are ready, Lord Momonga!" Aura announced cheerfully, waving her hands to the two dragonkin servants, who hurriedly stepped back.

 _I can't just say I want different test subjects after those two brought the golems here. You'll have to forgive me, guildmates._

Momonga took a deep breath and his feet broke into a combat stance, surprising himself at the fluidity of his motions.

 _There's no longer a combat console, but if I focus on my instincts, I know what motions to make. Of course, I learned a bit about sword fighting IRL after I took the [Fighter] class, but this combat knowledge far surpasses anything taught on earth…_

He almost moved his other hand to draw another sword, as usual for his class but resisted the urge. That wouldn't be needed here.

With a loud whistle from Aura, the golems sprang into motion, spreading out to two opposite directions.

 _A pincer attack? You won't get there in time._

As the golems approached, Momonga readied the guild weapon. With a signal of mana sent into the blade, the sword released the red gem, letting it roll down the blade until it fell into an opening on its length.

He smirked.

"[Red Dawn]!"

The fiery gem glowed in power, its red glow running down one of the serpents engraved into the blade. The wind began to billow around him, the air pulsing with crimson energy. With a horizontal slash too fast to see, a wave of red energy eclipsed everything in his sight, incinerating the golems within seconds. Swirls of dust were swept by the resulting winds, surely blowing back anything near its range.

Aura and Mare have their jaws unhinged, watching the scene with barely contained honor and pride for their master. Sure, defeating two level 60 golems with a single attack was nothing to be impressed with, but they had both felt the power of that sword. And to think he incinerated the golems without even making any craters, they thought. It was an exceptional showmanship of power control.

Indeed, they were almost correct. Momonga had aimed the power very carefully in order to only scorch the ground a little. Most structures in YGGDRASIL were indestructible, but he was pretty sure that this world had some actual physics to it. If he had been less careful of its function, he probably would have made a giant crater and there was no way he was paying for that.

Momonga felt the rushing of wind around him die down and took time to reflect. The attack he just used was an AOE divine class item skill, which was named [Red Dawn]. It eclipsed everything several hundred meters in front of the user with a red glow, but there was a height limit of around fifty meters. Anything with a lower than 40 physical defense rating would get rag-dolled by the wind caused by the energy, but that was if they weren't incinerated or blinded immediately. A powerful skill, but it could only be used so many times a day.

A powerful skill for average builds, at least. Any player with heat immunity, specializations in tanking, or a buffer specializing in defensive spells could take the attack head-on.

He had been sufficiently surprised when he first saw an attack like that, but to see it with a real pair of eyes, it was a completely different experience. When he stood in a pose after executing the skill, he was not doing so to look cool, but rather that he was completely in awe of its effects.

Slowly, he lowered the guild weapon, storing it back into his inventory.

"Well, I would usually be doing more, but it seems the blade is in perfect function. Now, I've called all the floor guardians here."

"Even… even Shalltear, Lord Momonga?"

"Indeed, Aura. I intend to put all the denizens of Nazarick to good use, now that a prime opportunity has arrived."

Aura and Mare shivered, sending maliciousness building within their master. "A-and what will this opportunity be, Lord Momonga?"

"I intend to have Sebas report this. You will be assigned to new tasks soon."

That was a good idea, Satoru thought. If he had to be a boss who had supposedly loyal subordinates, he needed to give them a certain amount of freedom in the outside world. One of the ways Satoru's company did this was helping fund YGGDRASIL's development, which helped employees relieve their stress in an otherwise polluted world with no future in sight.

Oh, that's right. The NPCs came to life. Momonga's mind still staggered at the possibilities of that. If he was still in Helheim, he would have liked to chat with Mephistopheles, one of his favorite NPCs. The demon had become almost a meme within the community, with his own fan artwork that Momonga had saved into his library.

"By the way, Mare. Is there anyone you can connect with [Message]? Any members of our guild? Anyone outside of Nazarick?"

Dammit, he was so stupid! Momonga wanted to slap himself in the face. He had gotten so wrapped up about the thought of getting trapped in a game world that he had forgotten about contacting other players or the GMs.

"A-ah, I am not worthy to be referred to as a member of the Supreme beings, Lord Momonga. Please forgive me for my worthlessness, but I- this one does not sense any Player entities outside of the Great Tomb of Nazarick.'

Momonga blinked. Was that a fourth wall break, or just how NPCs referred to players as? He hoped it would be the latter, judging by how Mare said "entities". On the other hand, this could be interesting. Perhaps all the other players were gathered at some kind of event after this happened. However…

He had to check for himself. Reaching into his inventory, he found and dusted the [Message Ring]. Holding his hand out, he willed for one of his rings to dissipate back into his inventory, the new ring replacing it.

 _This ring lets me use [Message] without any cost. I wonder if it'll work on NPCs?_

[Message] was one of those spells that the devs let everyone have, just for convenience's sake. However, he wanted to try an item with an active skill again.

There was the chance that Mare's lack of findings was due to a divination barrier or the like and who knows, maybe Sebas was killed already. There was a world item capable of deceiving guild information systems, making it look like Sebas was still alive on the NPC list when in fact, he was dead. However, Momonga doubted those rouges would be organizing something like this.

After all, they had not attacked during the last hour of YGGDRASIL, so he assumed that was just his paranoia.

Like a lone seeker in the woods, the mana he realized dashed from side to side, leaving the ring. His instincts told him the channel for players, but it seemed that there were none. Curious, Momonga focused it on one of the NPCs.

 _My Lord?_ The voice of Sebas rang in his head.

It connected, he thought. How convenient.

 _"Sebas, how goes the outside world?"_

There was a slight pause and Momonga's throat hitched.

 _How do I put this, my Lord… we are now on grass plains._

Momonga paused. While there were many plains in YGGDRASIL, the way Sebas said it told him that this wasn't familiar.

 _"Very well. Make your report on the sixth floor. Return with haste."_

 _Understood, Lord Momonga!_

Satoru sighed. He tried speaking like a medieval king, but he was not confident that it sounded right. The air was silent for several minutes, with the twins staring at him in apprehension and Momonga confused as to what to do.

"Mare and Aura, I will be gone to collect my thoughts now. Alert me with a [Message] spell when the guardians begin arriving."

"Understood, my Lord!"

Just as he was about to teleport away, his senses found a peculiar sound; one he knew too well. It was the sound of a [Gate] spell. His shoulders tensed at the thought of someone attacking Nazarick, but he remembered that the guardians would probably find it more convenient to just teleport.

"My my, am I the first one here?" A melodious voice rang out, its tone childish but far more malicious in nature. Momonga felt his insides chill a bit.

Shalltear Bloodfallen…

A formidable foe, Momonga mused. Hopefully, he would never have to fight her, because it would be a disrespect to her creator.

 _That said, how do the NPCs view us, who are technically their creators? This would make for an interesting book._ As he brushed off such thoughts, he had another lightbulb pop over his head.

"You are here early, Shalltear."

The guardian bowed curtly, making Momonga both uncomfortable and ego-stroked at the same time.

 _Did I do something wrong? I just thought social people would greet others whenever possible._

It seemed his worry was all for naught, however, as Shalltear smiled in genuine delight.

"My deepest apologies, Lord Momonga. I just couldn't wait at the thought of seeing the one man I cannot rule above!"

He sweated internally. Why did his friends have to all make their female NPCs batshit insane?

"Very well, then, Shalltear. Let's wait for your fellow guardians to arrive."

He had originally planned to have a conversation with her to poke around the NPC's personality, but he had cowered away when the time came. And why did it smell like mint scented pads, of all things?

After a short-lived round of banter between Aura and Shalltear, the rest of the floor guardians began to gather. First was Cocytus, the insectoid Niflheim Knight. His guild member Wizard Takemikazuchi created him, as the sorcerer had originally planned to be a warrior, but he chose wrong on a whim, so he wanted to embody the traits that he wished for in a warrior into his NPC.

The damn sorcerer used to complain on a daily basis about how he wanted to be a noble warrior, Momonga recalled. But he was already mid-leveled as a caster when Nine's Own Goal (their original guild) formed, so he didn't want to bother his guildmates with respeccing. It was then that the player stuck with the world of magic instead. The man was ecstatic upon finding out about the [Perfect Warrior] spell but was dismayed after learning he could beat neither Touch Me nor Momonga, who were both World Champion grade fighters.

The spell was mostly for fun, to be honest. There were many similar abilities given out to players of every class, allowing them to curb stomp low-leveled enemies with as much fun factor as possible. [Killing Intent] passives were the head of such abilities, making weak-willed mobs drop dead or flee by just the presence of players. They were given to most races or classes. Undead, on the other hand, had basically no emotion, so they had different "funbilities", as he liked to call them.

Well, [Killing Intent] was useless against anything below level 60, so it really wasn't that useful. Of the last group of guardians who arrived, there was Demiurge, who walked beside Albedo. Momonga sixth sense flared at the presence of another demon, much like it had with Albedo.

 _Now, for the real question. Who would win if I was in a fight with Cocytus?_

In the game, the answer would definitely be Momonga. He was a player; and even though NPCs were known for perfectly timing their attacks with incredible accuracy, Momonga was still a human with improvisational skills and planning. However, that wouldn't apply here. Perhaps Cocytus was a cut above him now in mental capacity.

Then it was high reason to let him stay loyal, Momonga shrugged.

 _What would he want? Gold? But would such a warrior really want that..._

However, he had Cocytus beat in any stat parameter. Upon finding the secret [Symbiote] race, he didn't invest a terrible amount into special combat skills. Instead, he chose the passive and active abilities that would push his stats through the limit, winning him many battles. While diversity in skillset was a good thing, keeping what limited options you had always with you was by no means a bad thing.

If anyone asked him why he didn't use many special skills, the obvious answer would be…

Fun, of course. Momonga enjoyed the real touch of blades and movement of his body over hotkeying thousands of strange skills that were more magic than anything. And upon finding that he had an above average physical reaction speed, he was more than glad in choosing the [Champion] class, a class which relied heavily on physical prowess. He obtained this tier 2 class after leveling up [Fighter] to its maximum, 15.

This didn't mean he had no special skills, however. His Special stat was very high because he needed to improve his stat buff skills, but also because of one of his trump cards…

Enough with the bragging, Momonga decided. He had zoned out for a while as the guardians gave their "pledge of fidelity" and although he was not certain of what exactly that meant, he could piece it together, judging by what the guardians had each said.

"Now, Guardians. The Great Tomb of Nazarick has been transported to a different realm, no doubt caused by the meddling of those troublesome angels and gods. Sebas will give you a report of our situation." He turned to the old butler, who stood behind one of the arena pillars.

Well, old in a technical way. If you were to count the years in which they had lived, Momonga was at least four times as old as Sebas. He'd prepared this speech in advance when he thought of Seraphim and the other guilds that constantly harassed Ainz Ooal Gown. If only he'd been a magic caster— that way he'd have more measures to deal with those bastards.

He expected the NPCs to recognize Seraphim, but he received nothing in the way of that. He hissed, remembering those times where the enemy guilds poked at Nazarick. He would be powerless to stop many of their extremely advanced magical assaults, the highest tiers of divination and teleportation magic combined with the best items directly hopping over the tomb's defenses. By the time he'd made that lost money back and developed countermeasures, it was too late. Most of those guilds either quit entirely and were immediately raided or became extremely defensive as the game came to a close.

He stopped thinking about those things; time to deal with the matter at hand. He heard Sebas begin speaking.

"Thank you, my Lord. From what the Pleiades, Eight Edge, and I have gathered, the Great Underground Tomb of Nazarick is now located in the middle of grass plains, with no animals or sentience in sight as far as our eyes can see. The grass itself is harmless and the skies are clear. There are insects, but they are just insects; they pose no threat to Nazarick."

"Is this place like Midgard?" Momonga inquired.

"Unlikely, my Lord. I fear your words earlier were correct. The grass and insects resemble those found all over the harmless areas of the Nine Realms, but they appear to be of different species. I would suggest having Mare or any of the druids we have to confirm this." Sebas calmly explained. The "different species" part piqued the interest of Demiurge, who appeared excited at the thought of such things.

"Is that so… Anything else, Sebas?"

"We spotted a forest not far from our location. If you would like, we can begin scouting immediately."

Momonga stroked his chin. If this world (assuming this was a different one) was anything like YGGDRASIL, he expected there to be many magic casters and warriors (the most popular options in the game). If that was the case, he would like to conceal the presence of the guild base immediately. However, he was completely in the dark here in terms of actual information.

And suddenly, he was very scared. Scared of the possibility of having to face off those with malicious intent. Scared of the loneliness. Scared of everything and the new burden that was placed on him.

"Do any of you guardians have a suggestion for concealing Nazarick?" Momonga spoke. The floor guardians all froze, ransacking their brains for potential ideas, but then immediately disposed of all of them due to fear of scolding from their master.

Unexpectedly, it was Mare who broke the silence.

"I-if I may, Lord Momonga, I can conceal the walls of Nazarick with dirt and disguise it as a hill."

"You dare suggest coating the walls of glorious Nazarick with dirt? Insolent child!" Albedo practically hissed.

"Silence, Albedo. Such steps may be necessary to ensure our safety. Honor means nothing if we are dead" Momonga reasoned.

"My deepest apologies, my Lord." Albedo apologized, her head now hung low in sincere emotion. If anyone were to look beyond that, however, they would see the smirk of a madman who had learned more about his prey.

"Plus, do not interrupt anyone while they are speaking." He rose his voice, earning a flinch from Aura.

Momonga panicked. The unintended attack towards Aura… the twins were loyal children, but he felt the twins could be easily manipulated, unlike Albedo or Sebas, who seemed to be fully loyal.

"Aura, have a Druid compare the native species of this world with our own. Mare, your suggestion is excellent… but I would like to hear some more. Demiurge?"

The fiend rose his head. "My Lord, it is an honor to have been given the chance to speak," The demon cleared his throat.

"While Mare's suggestion has merit, there exists measures for detecting seismic or conjuration magic, which Mare will no doubt be using. If we are in the territories of another kingdom, there may have been already such detection systems installed. Illusion magic, on the other hand, may be seen through, as we have no measure of the abilities of this "new world'. In either case, illusion magic should be used as there are areas we cannot cover with the earth. This way, the better choice are illusions. I feel it would be best to temporarily use illusion magic to conceal Nazarick while we perform a stealthy aerial survey of the area. This, of course, acts under the assumption that this world functions with laws similar to the Nine Realms. Aerial surveys are less likely to be detected…" The demon went on.

Momonga's brain farted. This really wasn't his job… Well, at least he was learning. It was apparent that Demiurge had him beat in intelligence, there was no doubt to that. Then the most obvious thing to do was to keep Demiurge loyal, lest he tries to take the throne for himself.

"Then we will do that. Does anyone else have a suggestion?" Momonga spoke.

The arena became silent again.

"Very well then, I have one last question for you guardians. What do you think of me?"

He turned to the vampire first. "Shalltear?"

"The strongest man in the world; the crystallization of power itself!" The True Vampire all but moaned.

"Cocytus?"

"The. Champion. Of. Champions. And. A. Most. Honorable. Warrior." The insectoid spoke, not concealing his emotions by the way his halberd impacted against the ground loudly.

"Demiurge?"

"The warrior who stands on top of the brutes of the world, as well as a wise and inscrutable leader. We are blessed to serve you, Supreme Being."

"Aura?"

"The most powerful person ever! No stronger will ever exist!"

"Mare?"

"A-a fearsome warrior. I pity the enemies of Nazarick."

"Sebas?"

"The only champion equal to my creator, Touch Me, as well as the only one of the Supreme Beings merciful enough to stay behind with us."

"And finally, Albedo?"

"The one Supreme Being who stands above the rest as their leader, and also the man I love…" The succubus spoke dreamily.

"...I see. I have taken your views into consideration. Now then, guardians, continue to serve me well!"

Ending his speech with an excited tone, Momonga flashed away. Finding some peace and quiet within one of the second-floor hallways.

"Why do they have such a high image of me?" He wailed.

"Let's see… the guardians all mentioned my power. Power, power, power… That's it! They respect me for my power. But isn't that a bad way of leadership? But aren't all of them set to be completely loyal to the guild?

"Ugh, so frustrating. I just don't know anything! But if there's one thing I'm sure of, is that I have their respect because I'm strong. That means I can't ever lose this strength…"

He drew the [Somas] from his inventory, swinging one of its blades in a downwards stroke too fast to observe. The area he stood in filled with a blast of wind, its pressure alone destroying the waves of skeletons that filled the corridor.

"Friendly fire is enabled too… that may work to my advantage or not. I have to keep this type of strength if I want to keep my head. For my sake and the guild's."

As he muttered those words, a new determination filled the player.

 **A/N:**

 **The first chapter is done! The second will be out soon, I've already written it, just need to edit.**

 **So, you might not have noticed, but things have already gone a lot differently for Momonga. I tried my best to make these things easy to find in the text, but in summary:**

 **Everyone views him differently (I'll leave it to you to figure out in which ways)**

 **Because of this, he interprets many things differently, with both beneficial and negative consequences.**

 **-He's not an undead. There'll be consequences...**

 **-He's ridiculously powerful, but he is not a magic caster. Think, where's his Despair Aura?**

 **-His goals in the New World will be altered slightly. There will still be a kingdom, this I promise.**

 **-You're mom gay lol**

 **Yep, Momonga being kind of stupid isn't helping anyone here. Although he was eager to learn, he still sucked at ruling and most of his successes are either through overwhelming power, luck, or his genius NPCs (Demi and Albedo). He also is terrible at determining who is actually loyal to his cause.**

 **Last note, I do apologize for rushing through things. I'd like to get this intro part over with soon. Momo needs to show off his pro skillz to the sunlight scripture. That's literally one of the two main things in Overlord; overwhelming MC power and also political drama.**


	2. Goals of One

Letting the ring transport him as Momonga looked to the ceiling, he phased into existence again before the gateway to his "dressing room". Dressing room, however, would be a strange way to look at his personal armoury.

Upon entrance, he found himself in a miniature throne room. The beautiful gothic architecture reflected well with the shape of his armour. With his first step, his foot impacted against a pressure plate in the pitch black floor. The high walls around him hissed and creaked, and panels slid up to reveal intimidating statues adorned with the most luxurious and beautiful armors imaginable. With his second step, the second floor of armors was revealed. With each step, more and more golems were unveiled until he reached the throne.

Its back did not reach high, compared to the grandiose of the lemegeton. Several mechanical arms and machines were embedded to the floor and throne, and Momonga sat back into the machine. Immediately, the limbs reached to clamp themselves on his armour, driving wrenches through the impossibly fine creases of the plate. As the pieces loosened, mechanical arms began to lift them off his shoulders, revealing smooth dark flesh.

His glowing red eyes shone brighter as the helmet came off, revealing the two gigantic bones that were his horns. They were not snake-like, but appeared bulky, completely contrasting his pitch black flesh; endless strands of shadow black made up his natural armour. With a final hiss, the armor disappeared in a flash into the player's inventory.

In YGGDRASIL, suits of armor required an assistant to equip, unless [Quick Change] crystals were used. Most players hired servants in their player homes to help them, but there were always other options. Some players with more… frowned upon tastes might use maid servants to do this. Many items, including cash shop purchases, allowed for users to easily equip suits of armor as well.

Momonga chose the expensive steampunk dresser to fit in with the gothic architecture of the tomb, as well as the armor golems stationed in his player home.

Narberal had finally figured out where Momonga was, judging by her sudden appearance. She followed him as Momonga stepped from the throne in only his race armor.

 _This is sort of embarrassing, I guess. The stinging thing from earlier is constantly working to calm me down._

Dosed on a dozen emotional suppressants, the lord of Nazarick stood there, motionless before the ground beneath him began hissing. A larger halo before the throne began glowing white, and the two stepped onto the ring. They began descending a moment later into complete darkness.

Momonga hadn't gone through the rooms in the correct order. The armor room was connected to his suite so that he could be battle-ready as soon as he spawned in beside his bed. Then, a golem would bring up any gear he called for from his personal storage rooms through the elevator.

 _I feel like someone pretending to be rich and showing off a bunch of useless toys to my friends..._

And that feeling was more than justified as he peeked at Narberal's ever-cold and most likely unimpressed gaze.

 _I came here to test this world's rules. Let's not delay this any longer._

If there were other players, Momonga thought, it would be best to know how damage work here.

Turning to a rack of wands and staves, Momonga carefully retrieved a [Wand of Heal]. The wand contained the sixth tier spell [Heal], which was only effective up to level sixty. Anything further and the ability could not even heal a single hit's worth of health.

Focusing his mana, he let the circuits run into the wand. He felt a jolt of electricity in his arm as the wand clattered to the ground, eliciting a startled expression from Nabe.

 _I can't use a priest's gear, as expected._

Returning the item to its spot, Momonga picked a Legacy tiered staff he looted from a wizard who thought Nazarick was a regular mid-leveled dungeon. She paid the price for it.

The eye that served as the gemstone of the staff would not open unless a wizard of the appropriate levels used it. Momonga closed his eyes and searched into the depths of his body.

 _[Champion's Expertise]_

A silent cast of the skill was all that he needed for the staff to activate. It boosted his low magical power and brought a shiny purple glow to his skin.

It was not necessary to mutter any incantation to cast a spell or skill, and being a frequent PvP and PK player, Momonga never announced his attacks unless the team would benefit from doing so. [Champion's Expertise] allowed for its user to temporarily gain access to any item outside of their class for 13 seconds, once an hour. There existed an alternative; it allowed the user to use three items outside their class every hour.

Momonga had not chosen the other option. The ability complimented his never-ending assault philosophy better. It just meant he had less healing potential.

This choice, however, allowed him to use items that would immobilize the enemy first, meaning he could use much more items.

It was one of the key skills for winning in the World Championships. It was awarded to anyone who won their first matchup. While overpowered skills and items awarded to participants only sounded rather unbalanced, the world champion grade players were rare enough that it was not a problem. Only twelve players were allowed to participate every season, after all.

 _At least, that's what the devs tell everyone. They just bribe the champions to not participate in future regionals or world tournaments._

Humming with satisfaction, Momonga made a checklist of all his viable abilities, finding the exact motion he needed to feel in his mind to activate them.

His interest landed on two particular skills. Reading over their abilities, Momonga decided to test them out.

 _[Manifest Swordsman's Dream]_

A pair of massive blades flashed into existence in his hands. Black as the darkness itself and adorned with a sinister edge and tip, the sword appeared unwieldy but intimidating.

The blades were built-in with a dual link and several powerful stats, around a [Legacy] tiered weapon's level. There were no spells of any kind embedded, as he was not a vampire hunter or cleric knight. It was just a pair of blades with static power, unable to grow.

Peering into his inventory, a wave of blue mana washed over him, cloaking the player in expensive jet-black armor. Momonga stared at the less intimidating but more dashing version of his armored self.

The armor was gifted to him by an unusually powerful mage in the early days of the game. The human mage was already level 60 by some unknown means, while most of the players barely hit 40 at the time. The benevolent man carried Momonga's public raid team, gifting them magically created gear.

The downside to these items was that they were worthless when the player base reached the level required for the skill. They could also not be sold on any official trading platform or to NPCs.

That actually turned out to not be the case, Momonga noted. He spent some time testing the rules when he discovered that there was no longer a trading system with rules— much closer to reality.

"Hold up!" His eyes widened.

Momonga retrieved his exchange box, setting the item down on one of the workbenches. He quickly created another blade, randomizing its stats before depositing it inside the box. He waited with excited breath.

…

And handfuls of coins spilled out of the box.

"Nice." Momonga quipped, quoting autistic people.

The guild master watched as the coins flashed blue before depositing themselves in the guild reservoir, a joyful smirk coming over his demonic features.

Well, as close to a smile as one could get with a creature that did not even have a mouth. Or nose. Or ears. Or hair for that matter.

 _If this is the case then monster summons should drop their gear as well. Now we have an exploitable source of income!_

"Narberal, I will be absent for a moment to collect my thoughts."

"My Lord, the guards are waiting for you outside." The maid calmly informed.

Momonga saw his eyes flash in the mirror before him. "Spare them the trouble. I simply wish to take a walk."

Narberal began tearing up. "I-I beg of you My Lord. If some intruder wished to do you harm, it will be our duty to perish as meat shields."

He dismissed the servant with a wave of his hands. "A foolish waste of resources. I understand your concern… or could it be that you doubt my combat abilities?"

The maid had a terrified expression on her face unfit for her character. "I-of course not, My Lord."

"Then there is no need for a bodyguard at this time. If it comforts you, I shall leave in my armor."

Dismissing the set he had made himself, Momonga returned to don his gear.

* * *

While it pained him to treat the creations of his friends— their children, with such attitude, Momonga had to endure if he didn't want to become a slave to their desires. The player saw their fanatical devotion as a double-edged sword. They might take everything he said as law, which would no doubt lead them to defeat from the misinterpretation of his words. On the other hand, having servants that were utterly devoted would mean he didn't have to worry about anyone unconsciously or consciously trying to undermine him.

 _No doubt the dream of any manager._

Sighing, Momonga walked up the steps of one of the hidden entrances. His [Master Key] disabled any friendly traps in the area, but they would not do any harm to him anyway since it was on the first floor. The area was designed to lure noobs who didn't know what they were in for. Standard low-tier traps littered the halls unless anyone had the misfortune of meeting Kyouhukou or any of the… less pleasant NPCs.

His view of the sky was disturbed when his demon senses picked up several of his kin standing guard. One of the four presences felt familiar…

"Demiurge?"

The archdevil's three generals kneeled at the sight of their master, and the mastermind quickly followed.

"Lord Momonga—"

"Call me Momon."

The demon froze, then chuckled. "I see. As usual, My Lord, your attention to detail is impeccable."

 _What's he talking about now? I just plan to use this form to play hero and gather more information._

While he didn't know anything about the world yet, he could already theorize that it was going to be very similar to the game itself. That said, going in an alternate form would be best.

Confused, the player stepped forward.

"I'm afraid I can't let you leave without an escort, My Lord. Forgive this lowly servant for his selfishness…"

 _As expected, he saw right through me._

Sighing, the guild master left without another word. "Just one, then."

He could hear the servants getting up to leave and the light steps of Demiurge heading after him.

 _I've got to find a way to turn this demon sense thing off. A sixth sense is not as comfortable as I thought._

Staring into the skies, Momonga tried to forget about everything. About the questions and the anxiety in his mind. His eyes eventually turned to a black spot in the skies.

"I presume that is the scouting party, Demiurge?"

"Indeed, My Lord."

"What stealth abilities were chosen?"

"We used servants with racial abilities of flight and [Perfect Unknown], My Lord."

Momonga nodded. That would have been what any experienced player would do.

"Then I hope they will not be bothered if we join them." Momonga decided, sending a [Message] to one of the Eight Edge. The arachnid assassin stepped out of the dimensional gateway a moment later, and bowed to his master, before being called upon by his name.

"My Lord?"

"Use you [Assassin's Link] skill on Demiurge and me. That will be all."

As the arachnid left, Demiurge casted [Perfect Unknown] on his master and himself.

The preparations were complete, Momonga announced. He took his eyes off the beautiful moon and twitched before pitch black wings sprouted from his back. He turned around to see Demiurge morphing into a frog-like demon with insidious wings covered in slime.

He turned back. Momonga did not like most of the more… disgusting races of YGGDRASIL. If there was a monster he liked, it had to have features that at least looked cool. That said, he also didn't mind a good Lovecraftian horror. Monsters were just… not as comfortable to around. One of the major reasons he stuck around with the guild was because of all the disgusting and intimidating heteromorphs that had normal monotone voices.

 _I don't know why, but it was so ridiculous to me in the beginning._

He breathed in heavily.

 _Oh, that's right. The air is also clean enough to breathe without lung implants. Was this what it was like back in the early 21st century?_

He was amazed and a little ashamed of himself at the same time for not appreciating the quality of the air.

 _I suppose I'll have to put down anyone that tries to burn coal or oil, then._

He quickly dismissed the idea.

 _If this world is as strong as around Midgard, then I should be high on the tier list. Soldiers in Midgard are only 80 at most, and with the ridiculously unbalanced level scaling, only world enemies and Divine enemies would impede my goals._

Level scaling was… He didn't know how to put it exactly, but it was as ridiculous as it could get. The gap between levels was large enough that a level 100 should be able to duel 3 level 95 players without a problem, even if the three had access to over tier spells.

Most of Nazarick's defenses came from the large sums spent on the traps that would kill even level 100 beings and the endless waves of level 80-95 mercenaries. The mercenaries and NPCs were boosted by special items in the dungeon that would bring their level up to 100.

The other option, of course, was a guild-exclusive item that would bring up the powers of players while they were in the guild hall. Nazarick never chose this option, as most of its players were salarymen and therefore unable to work on the game at night. Their two "night shift" players had left long ago, too.

Sighing in sadness, Momonga took flight. The wind rushed against his face, pulling him higher and higher into the clouds. As he broke through, he marveled at the sight. Taking off his helmet, Momonga felt the rush of wind around him and the chilly atmosphere.

Protected from the cold, the player was fascinated by the stars that flowed brilliantly. A nova blue galaxy was before his eyes— and he couldn't recognize a thing.

Momonga knew, according to recorded first-hand accounts, that the Milky Way galaxy in all its glory was visible to earth's children some time until the 1950s. After that, the light pollution clouded the stars one by one until it would be easy to see in the dark if it wasn't for all the smog and air pollution.

His lack of recognition terrified and excited him at the same time.

 _Does this mean I am in another galaxy? Another universe, maybe? Or could it be that another planet's view of the stars is different? All are plausible, yet none of them feel right._

As much as Momonga wanted to say that this was the result of some higher power, his former self still felt fear. What if this was some kind of simulation? A social experiment? He didn't have the answer.

 _If my body is still out there somewhere, drugged in a government lab or something— or maybe in a computer, turned into an AI, I hope they won't notice my birthmark._

Looking back at his ass again, he was relieved to find it no longer there.

"Demiurge, isn't this sky like a chest of jewels?"

"Indeed they are, My Lord. If you allow it, we servants of Nazarick will do all that we can to obtain this box of treasures for you."

"You are right, perhaps I came here to obtain this box of jewels… which I will use to decorate my comrades of Ainz Ooal Gown with."

The demons were silent for a moment, watching over the untainted lands.

"If the conditions are right, conquering this world might be enjoyable."

* * *

 **A/N: Sorry for everything being a copy of Overlord canon events for now. Some major events will always occur, but the fates of many characters will be different and a lot of things will be changed. I promise you the ending won't be anything you've ever expected.**

 **Make sure to review and share your thoughts, I've had wonderful PM conversations with many reviewers last time. I received replies from most reviewers, so I won't need to post a response here. However, I can't contact guests!**

 **On the subject of pairings Momonga is not the only main character (and no, not Climb or Gazef or some shit like that), so there will be a vote for who will pair up with bone padre.**

 **Next chapter is done, but it's long as fuck since it includes the "battle" of Carne village, and I did not want to cut off the "fight" with the Sunlight Scripture.**

 **Review!**


	3. Army of Two

Enri Emmot had ran for her family's life. Perhaps this would have been an odd statement, as one would usually use "ran for her life" to describe the despair in such situations. However, Enri Emmot was a special case. She did really not think she would survive. All she hoped for was for her baby sister; Nemu Emmot, to survive the disaster that befell the rest of her village. She had to get her to safety. While her desire to protect was not as strong as an actual mother's, the sisters were close due to the hardships of village life. Despite the adventurers that would come every two months or so, Carne was still a frontier village- and death by monsters would be their fate, king of the forest or not.

However, the monsters here were not the inhumans- no, these invaders were different. They were knights of a foreign nation, here to pillage and terrorize their lands. From the cruel empire that was the Baharuth nation to the corrupt kingdom of Re-Estize, the peasants were stuck between a rock and a hard place.

She imagined the knight that was about to slay her, smiling cruelly under his helmet. She had to place confidence in Nemu. She had to escape.

Enri Emmot closed her eyes.

And the blade whistled.

Concealed from the view of the invaders and villagers by the forest in front of them, a man in silver armor chuckled.

* * *

Momonga flipped through the pages of Demiurge's report, marveling at the intricately drawn map and overwhelmed at the same time by the amazing amount of detail that was sewn within the canvas. The various scouts had crafted his personal map of the area on an extremely fine parchment, and Momonga himself was scared to even appraise it since he didn't want to faint at the cost of the thing.

 _I mean… This is a lot of fucking gold!_

Gold wasn't particularly rare in YGGDRASIL, but now that everything was real, he didn't want to spend everything so frivolously. He'd later ordered the NPCs to write and plan on cheap paper from the lower tiered trees of the fifth floor or the newsletter board, since… well, there was no way he was spending money on something like _paper_.

(Despite the high cost of wood-pulp paper in his world, there were still moderately priced synthetic canvases and paper made from stone and petroleum.)

He was originally going to gift the map to one of the NPCs, but since it was actually useless (since they were on plains), he decided to hang the artwork in his "office". "Office" meaning a room luxurious enough to inflate the market worth of gold to _nothing_.

The NPC who crafted this map broke into tears at this news and vowed to serve him to their deaths.

 _That was awkward..._

Momonga sat his ass down on the chair in one of Nazarick's many living rooms. Well, living room was a terrible understatement. If anything, the room was worth at least several mansions. Satoru Suzuki felt terribly out of place here. Again, he'd realized how strange it was that every guild base and player home were all essentially palaces of the gods. Did it embody their dreams? Did it assert their dominance? Did it stroke their egos? He wouldn't know, as he preferred more humble or "cool" settings himself.

Momonga shifted uncomfortably in his seat for a few moments, and readjusted his composure a second later, as Sebas had come into the room.

"Did you bring the magic item as I asked for?"

"It is here, Lord Momonga." The butler bowed.

The old man retrieved the mirror from his inventory, and set it out on the table before Momonga. The magic item surfed mid-air for a brief moment before landing perfectly on the chiseled marble of the table in front of him. Its edges were adorned in gold, and the image on it shifted- now showing the plains around Nazarick with a glassy-blue hue.

Normally, he would be annoyed at the low video quality, but this was literally a magic item in a fantasy world, so he couldn't exactly complain when he doubted electronic technology was even conceptualized.

It was just a hunch, however. Who knew, maybe this was a sci-fi universe, and this was just a remote colony world. Momonga dismissed the thought and raised his hands to the mirror. After an awkward silence, he spoke up.

"How is this item operated?"

"Like so, my Lord." Sebas moved to occupy the space in front of Momonga, and the old man began masterfully manipulating the motions of the mirror's field of view. He zoomed in and out and moved the view across what seemed to be a small patch of trees.

 _It's actually much more mobile and flexible than an actual surveillance drone,_ Momonga realized. Added to the fact that it was just an energy anomaly (aka magic), it would be hard to detect with radars and sensors conventional to Satoru's world. Only counter-surveillance magic and skills could put a stop to divination magic.

Combined with the ease of use, this would have been an invaluable tool. If it could be integrated with machines… Momonga stopped his line of thought.

Fascinated by magic, Momonga smiled under his helmet. This was turning out to be more exciting than ever, despite the fact that he was doing mere surveillance work, which should have been handed down to his subordinates.

The problem would be counter-surveillance magic. Those skills and spells could conceal their users from divination, especially from a low leveled item like the one he was using. He was also susceptible to a counter-attack spells triggered by counter-divination methods… And high tier spells of that kind could destroy the item itself.

Taking over the reigns of the magic mirror, Momonga moved the "eye" rapidly across the plains, going further to his left. Demiurge's aerial survey had revealed a village or two in sight, though they were too far to see specifics. Going to extreme heights had also revealed the planet's apparent lack of advanced technology and satellites. Momonga himself loved the night sky, and wished to see it again…

He heard there was some kind of formula for finding things you didn't know the exact location of, but unless he visited the library, he wouldn't know that equation. Punitto Moe had stocked him up on a collection of strategy books when he left the game, but Momonga himself was at a loss; he was a fighter, and he didn't lead armies. What use was the _Art of War_ when he had no army?

Well, that was an exaggeration. Those books were useful, but not useful enough. He just wasn't going to lead an army any time soon. The demon returned to attention as he nearly zoomed by a village. With a hurried motion, he panned the mirror to focus on the village once again.

"A festival…?"

A moment later he would realize how stupid of an assumption that was and what a senseless joke it was. He was sure Sebas' moral value was quite high, so he was sure the butler had taken some offense. Focusing on the knights, he followed one of the riders. His perception allowed him to view the scene with perfect clarity. Knights chasing down men and women… knights killing and looting and setting things on fire.

Shifting the mirror again, the scene cut to a man gasping for life as the invader plunged the sword into his back, splashing blood everywhere.

Satoru felt nauseous, but the sharp pain appeared in his neck again, and the hissing of an injection could be heard. His vision blurred and tunneled for a few seconds- before returning to normal.

 _It seems my body employs some kind of injection to combat intense stress. Ah, I remember this skill now. Its effects are similar to the description of [Stimulus: Calm], so that must be it._

His mind had adapted- but something else deep inside had not. Almost leaping from the chair, and surprising Sebas, he turned to the butler.

"We have to help them immediately, Sebas! Keep searching for signs of civilization in my place and gather 2 seekers and 40 soldiers with invisibility or stealth skills. I want them to form a perimeter around the village!"

He wasn't sure about it, but he saw something stirring within the old butler. Momonga himself felt his own spirits rise at the butler's reaction.

"It will be done, Lord Momonga!" The servant cried, barely concealing his joy.

Momonga chuckled, sending a [Message] to Omega. A [Gate] portal opened before him moments later, and a bright flash of light was all that could be seen before he stepped through the portal.

* * *

Enri Emmot squeezed her eyes shut. She could hear the whistling of the blade through the air. She had denied it moments before, but after praying to several gods she didn't believe in and hearing no answer, she had accepted her fate. However, there was one thing left to be done… But it was too late. Nemu was too tired to run, and now they would both pay the price with their lives.

She felt the shadow of the sword over her head…

A loud clang rang out. A flash of silver resounded in her head, though she knew that wouldn't have been possible. It was almost like the work of magic…

"W-what?" The knight above her gasped. Enri curiously pried her eyes open and found a scene only dreams could bring.

Standing above her was a warrior adorned in platinum white armor. While it was not a full plate, judging by the straps of leather and cloth that could be seen easily between the pieces of armor, in Enri's mind, it remained as powerful as ever.

He was almost a head taller than the knight that was about to strike her, white plate reflecting brilliantly in the sun making his presence even more attractive. He was poised in a lunge, blades still locked with the shocked knight. And his sword… Simple in design, yet the greatsword's glowing material made it all the more brilliant. A pitch black handle contrasted with the silverish platinum blade, worn with elegant engravings.

The imperial knight tried to remove his sword and counter-attack, and Enri was ready to warn her savior, but it appeared he had the battle more than handled. In a flash of silver, the invader knight collapsed to the ground, a clean stroke having cleaved through his armor and vitals. Barely any amount of blood was seen on the man or his sword, and Enri dismissed this as a testament to the warrior's skill.

 _His body only a shield for the maiden;_

 _Protecting the weak and innocent,_

 _The Savior of justice has arrived..._

 _My white knight!_

Her eyes turned to stars of wonder.

"S-stay back!" The other imperial knight yelled, tightly grasping his sword and turning his head around for a moment.

"Guys! A little help here!"

When no answer came but the galloping of horses and the screams of the dying, the knight nervously turned his head back to the warrior in front of him.

A silver hood covered his head. No, this was not an ordinary hood, this hood was smooth and crafted out of the same metal as his armour, and thick enough to be heavy plate. The man didn't have time to think more about his opponent's strange headgear, however, as amber eyes with tiny, barely noticeable slits glared into his own.

"Stand down, invader, or you'll be put down." The man commanded sternly.

The knight considered this for a moment. He was a man of the theocracy… and men of the theocracy did not bow down to foolish heroes. He refocused his will; his nation had ordered there to be no survivors for the sake of the mission, putting down fools who supported the corrupt kingdom of Re-Estize instead of the Holy cause of Mankind.

 _Was this Stronoff?_ He questioned in his mind.

He dismissed the thought a moment later. From what he had heard, Gazef was a rat, but he was not a fool. He was the strongest warrior of the Re-Estize kingdom, and it was blasphemy to have a warrior of that caliber not be escorted by a squadron of soldiers.

Packing all hesitation aside, he readied his stance again, the tiny opening of his visor almost glaring at his enemy. The warrior looked disappointed for a moment and sighed, lowering his weapon. The knight was confused for a moment. Was his opponent giving up?

His eyes widened to their maximum, however, as the very ground trembled beneath the silver-clad enemy, launching the warrior into a forward dash. He barely had time to even consider moving his sword in defense. There was simply no time to dodge.

Time slowed to a halt. His life flashed before his eyes-

And it was over. The now bisected man's upper half toppled to the ground, his lower half following a moment later.

"So weak… He dies to a single stroke from a mere Legendary-tiered blade, and in a false form that barely scratches my potential…" The man muttered, words quiet enough not to reach the two girls.

The sound of a tear in reality grabbed their attention again. Enri tensed and hugged her sister closer, but relaxed somewhat when she saw the clam-as-ever posture of her savior. Her eyes flashed with the magical light, watching with curiosity as a woman clad in red armor stepped through. The armor… it must have belonged to an angel; a warrior of the gods. Like her savior's armor, the premise was simple yet it'd been done with unrivaled craftsmanship.

Despite the feelings stirring within her, she could not help but be impressed. She imagined herself in that armor- riding to battle with her savior and sharing a long kiss when the battle was won, and the enemy crushed.

And her face- Enri felt an ugly emotion inside of her. She was blonde; not golden, not straw-like, not dirty, but the regal hair of nobility. Her red eyes and smug smirk made her feel...

"My apologies, my Lord. The preparations took longer than expected."

Her eyes narrowed. The voice… it sounded mature, but there was something evil, something malicious about it.

"It's fine, Sangria. Your timing is impeccable."

 _What an odd name…_ Her suspicions rose to the roofs. She stopped thinking about this when the two warriors finally noticed her. She felt as the kind gaze of her savior bore into her eyes, and she looked away with a blush.

"You appear to be hurt. Eat this." The man reached to a pouch on his belt, retrieving a beautiful green herb. She could smell its wonderful scent from miles away… Enri, apprehensively reached out for it, before pulling it to her chest with surprising speed, as if clutching onto it for dear life.

"T-thank you." The village girl muttered apprehensively, before taking the plant and chewing on the herb, savoring every bite, and finally, almost regretfully swallowing the plant.

She looked to her back, to find the wound slowly knitting back together… "No way!"

Enri was more than pleased. The herb her white knight had gifted her was of much higher tier than what the pharmacist (what was his name again?) brought to the village. She blushed, realizing how expensive the plant must have been. Now she was in his debt for life!

Not that she minded.

On the other hand, there was that… pale girl that accompanied her savior. Enri believed that she would be seen as the type of person with a "radiant", almost holy type of beauty. However, she knew there was something wrong with her, and Enri would be the first to warn her white knight.

"Sangria, cast some protection spells on them."

"Yes, my Lord! [Greater Resistance]. [Elemental Shield]. [Ranged Protection]."

"Let's advance. Every second we spend here is another villager dead." The man took a step towards the village.

Enri panicked. Was her savior leaving her behind? No, she realized, how could she have been so foolish? She had not even spoken a word to the knight; she must have seemed like an idiot! Shifting her body closer to the warrior, she cried out her heart.

"Th-thank you for saving us!"

"Thank you!" Her little sister added.

She held her breath, and time slowed down as the man turned his head around to judge her soul.

"It is nothing…"

Amazing, Enri thought. This must be the life of a white knight. To have such care for the lives of the innocent. He stood above all men. This was true nobility, not the disgusting kind that would tax people. What use were taxes when the nobles had so many riches? She was definitely right! Taxes were evil!

"You're our only hope, kind sir. Please! Save the village and our families!" She cried.

"No need to ask. Let us be on our way. Stick close behind us. If there is any danger, run and we will take care of it."

"Thank you, thank you, brave knight! B-but… can I- no, we, know your name?"

The man appeared to be in deep thought for a moment and normally, Enri would be confused at why anyone would hesitate when asked of their names. This time, she thought nothing of it, and eagerly awaited the answer.

"Call me… call me Ainzly."

* * *

Momonga reflected on the fight. He had ordered his seekers to analyze all of the knights, and to his surprise, found none of them bypassing level 10. He was completely baffled and disappointed at the same time… a few common soldiers couldn't tell him anything about the strength of this world. From the other reports, the seekers and assassins had also sighted movements of soldiers on horseback traveling towards the village. More disturbingly, however, they reported movements of men adorned in mage armor in hiding. He stopped listening to the report just as there was about to be more information dumped, lest the two girls fall to the pursuing knights.

Coming here in [Enochian] was a big risk, Momonga noticed. If his HP dropped too much, he would revert to his actual form, and that would be a big blow to his image. He came here in the human disguise as he wanted to stay a warrior, but not associate his image with the invading knights.

 _I also could have come here in that "Momon" disguise. But since [Enochian] allows for three different humanoid configurations, I can simply get rid of this one._

He also noted the distinct lack of demihumans and heteromorphs. There was only few YGGDRASIL villages that had no magical animals or demihumans within their villages. That meant he wanted to be as human as possible to look familiar to the villagers, and a walking mountain of darkness wasn't going to help with that. In case this was a world without heteromorphs or demihumans, he had to go with [Enochian].

 _I hope the knights aren't hiding some sort of hidden powerhouse. I wouldn't be surprised if a level 100 rogue managed to evade the Eight Edge or the Hanzos._

The only counter to that would be having one of the Overlord librarians summon an Eyeball Corpse and conceal it with magic. On the other hand, a cash item would also do the trick. Shalltear, however...

The true vampire was in disguise- clad in a set of rose-red Legendary armor hand-picked by Pandora's Actor and wielding a longsword of the same tier built for vampire would both go into their actual gear if the situation called for it, but for now, they were sticking with this.

Thankfully, she had chosen an appearance that was… How can he put this… arrogant enough that he wouldn't feel… _uncomfortable_. While he couldn't deny that she looked pretty good, she held an aura that put people on edge instead of in love. Albedo replaced Shalltear as the guardian of the first and third floors in her absence, which he hoped the Unholy Knight would not mind.

The reason he had chosen Shalltear was due to her magic; as a Valkyrie, she not only had access to powerful spells for combat support but also because she would be able to handle herself in a fight better than any other floor guardian. Well, not Aureole or Rubedo leveled, but still the strongest floor guardian.

He himself was a decent tank, so bringing Albedo wouldn't help at all.

His five Overlord Librarians, while more specialized in magic, were too weak. Their level only went up to 85.

"Sangria, are you ready?"

"Always, my Lord."

He saw the vampire draw her new blade- an elegant longsword with a glassy edge that appeared as if there were red veins embedded inside. On the hilt was a golden Christian cross, befitting a cleric knight. The red vampire blade was ready to kill.

Oh, and there was the subject of his name. He chose the name because of _Ainz Ooal Gown_ , obviously, but since he was a demon, he felt _Ainzly_ fit him better. Demons always had either simple or strange names. Alastor and Amy (actual demons!), for example, were pretty straightforward. On the other hand, there were names like Beelzebub, which… what? Why? He didn't get it. Was he given that name just to mock demons?

Would people think his name was strange or funny? Should he have called himself _Ainz Ooal Gown_ instead?

 _For some reason, I feel that image fits a mysterious magic caster better. Well, no going back now._

Calling to his mana pool, he activated the [Message] spell.

[Assassin of the Eight Edge, you may continue your report]

[Thank you, My Lord. As I was saying, there are around 100 magic casters in hiding just outside of the village. They range from level 9 to 15 as a blend of offense, support, and all have summoning classes, but their leader is a level 23 angel summoner. They are equipped in Low-Tier magic armor. From what we have heard, they are also religious, and worship "gods" that have the elements as their domain.]

Momonga took a moment to process this information as they jogged towards the village. Religious? Summoner? Angels? it didn't look like they were players, but a large gathering of mages all equipped in the same type of magic gear usually meant some kind of organized group. They could very well be this world's mage soldiers. This also confirmed that this world was similar to YGGDRASIL, perhaps some kind of medieval aged world with YGGDRASIL systems.

 _Shit, did I just intervene in some country's war? This isn't good… well, I should finish what I started. I'll have to take risks if I want to succeed._

[Thank you, Assassin of the Eight Edge. Do not engage with them and contact me should anything else arise.]

[Anything for you, My Lord!]

Momonga smiled. It looked like he would be in control of the situation here after all. Taking note of the dying sounds of the villagers, he rushed to meet his first foe, who was a knight on horseback that had noticed him walking with the two girls.

The man, mounted on his horse, gave a war cry and charged towards the player, unaware of the fate that would befall him. His charge grew hesitant as Momonga kept moving calmly without changing his pace, but the knight was too late to change course. With fluid movement, Momonga sidestepped the horse and stabbed towards the man, impaling the knight in the heart. The man wailed in pain, falling off his horse a moment later.

Momonga frowned. While he outclassed (literally) the man by miles, he was reminded of how difficult it was in the early game to deal with riders. If a player didn't have a polearm or a weapon with long reach, a new player was hard-pressed to win without a party.

In the midst of the slaughter and burning, the only order was how the knights worked in groups of three. Only the remaining two in the rider's team noticed the man's death. They looked to each other, then to Momonga, and then to Shalltear, before charging.

The player chuckled. He needed to save the village, not focus on fighting these knights. With one slash of silver, all that was left of the two were their halved remains. This was the work of some basic channeling and range extending skills.

"Protect and heal the villagers. I will deal with the knights." He ordered Sangria.

"Sangria" nodded as her master dashed towards a knight preparing to kill looming over a woman protecting her children. Their terrified faces turned to shock as the knight was impaled through the back with a silver sword.

Momonga drew his sword from the knight's back and turned to kill another knight charging towards him. One of the men had decided attacking Sangria was a good idea, but found a longsword lodged within his neck a moment later, his helmet concealing his rapidly paling face. He plunged towards the ground a moment later, his clothes shriveled. Turning to the woman Momonga had just saved, Sangria cast [Light Cure Wounds] and healed the mother of three.

"Th-thank you!"

Only smiling in return, Sangria continued healing.

Momonga was making his way through the knights with ever-increasing pace. For every invader he slew, the more attention he attracted. No matter what the knights threw at him: two, four, six men at a time, spearmen, flails, maces, cavalry, nothing even got within proper melee range of the new warrior. After being saved, a few men and women had even picked up weapons to help fight the knights.

Momonga worked hard not to immediately slash the knights into two, making only killing slashes and stabs. Otherwise… well, it wouldn't do well for his image. He wanted to look like a brave noble warrior, not a savage.

"Please help us! They've rounded up most of us at the village centre!"

The player nodded to the villager, a determined expression on his face.

"If you wish to assist me, pick up a spear. You'll all hurt yourselves before you ever get a kill if you keep using your sword like that." He joked.

Unexpectedly to Momonga, this seemingly enforced the spirits of the villagers, putting a smile on their faces. They scoured the dead knights for pikes and spears, looting the polearms. Some even took the helmets, although most of those who did decided to ditch them. The helmets were dashed with blood and putrid sweat, and the villagers found themselves uncomfortable within.

"After me!" He roared, a small group of villagers in tow following his charge.

Breaking through the clustered streets and into the village square, Momonga sliced open the stomach of the opponent in front of him, and the villagers converged on the man as Momonga moved on. Six spears simultaneously stabbed into the invader's body, creating an almost comical scene as blood began leaking from every orifice the man had.

The invaders swore; the situation was turning against their favor by the second. It was then that their captain spoke up.

"Halt! We are on official business of the Slaine Theocracy! Leave now or we will be forced to kill you and the villagers!"

The warrior in silver paused as if considering the notion for a moment. "If I do so, will you leave the villagers alone?'

The man shook his head. "We are doing this for humanity's sake. The villagers will have to die."

"Killing villagers will help humanity? What nonsense. Consider this your last warning: leave now or I'll kill every single one of you." His amber irises burned into the invading knights.

The invader laughed. "You stand no chance against the will of the gods! I'll have that woman too once I'm done with you… GET HIM!"

Grinning lustfully at "Sangria", The man pointed towards Momonga, and the knights rushed into motion.

 _He doesn't seem to be a tactical mastermind, so I assume he's just a coward. However, that remark… what a piece of shit!_

Immediately, twelve knights came at them at once, behind them several more knights that moved to surround the band of resistance. Momonga turned to notice a detachment of four knights at the street they just broke out of, effectively trapping the villagers there.

 _They think the villagers will give up just because they are surrounded… well, they would, but that's why I'm here._

Momonga smirked, turning his head back to the armed villagers. "Form a circle! Keep them back while I deal with most of them! Sangria?"

The blonde woman nodded with a "yes, my Lord", casting [Lesser Resistance] and [Lesser Speed] on all of the villagers. She readied her blade, spinning it in her hands.

The knights closed in.

Momonga took a deep breath. When similarly leveled, fighting more than three opponents was usually impossible, even with tanking or AOE abilities. Otherwise, it was usually best to keep the attackers in one direction as covering all angles of attack was not easy, but they'd already surrounded the villagers. Going aggressive and constantly moving was also vital. In this case, there were only a circle of untrained villagers surrounded by a whole platoon of knights.

Shalltear blazed to the opposite direction, towards the other end of the village dancing around the attacks of the knights, killing them with graceful steps. For every move and attack, she was perfectly balanced, as if the knights were falling into her blade. Retrieving her blade from the throat of the last knight in her area, she nodded toward Momonga.

"Move back! Form a line!" He ordered.

The armed villagers complied, dispersing into formation and forming a line of spears and pikes. Momonga and Sangria moved to the sides of the armed villagers, protecting them from the knights that were trying to flank them.

"Advance!"

The villagers in captivity cheered for their brethren, shouting words of encouragement. The knights that were trying to keep them down became more and more worried as their fellow knights were cut down quicker than ever.

"Fuck fuck fuck!" The captain muttered, losing his cool. First he gets attacked by the girl's father after trying to have his way with her, then an upstart turns the invasion that would bring glory to his house to ruin. He had to leave...

"Be my shield! Buy time for me to escape! You'll be rewarded with gold!" He yelled, turning tail and making for his horse.

Beside him, another knight sighed. "That fool Belius… Listen, you! Yes, you, run and blow the horn for the horsemen and archers! We'll buy time for you!"

The man he called for timidly nodded, before running madly for the horn. The other men cursed, some of them taking a step backwards as the man in white scored another killing slash, and kicking the dying knight away. The poor soul must have flown several yards before landing in a thud, blood spilling the ground.

As if mocking them, the white knight grinned. "That the best you got?"

Ignoring the horrid gasps of his fellow knights as they were killed by the blonde woman and collapsing to the ground, shriveled as if they were drained of their souls, Londes grit his teeth. There was no time to waste. He ran towards the white knight's right flank, slowing when he was close and staying nimble on his feet, ready to dodge and attack. His eyes bulged, however, as the man disappeared from sight, kicking up a torrent of wind. Blood spurted from Londes' neck.

His head fell to the ground a moment later, causing a cry of fear in his companions. The "white knight" hadn't even bothered correcting his stance, still stuck in a lunge as if he was posing. One particularly brave knight tried to attack him in this weak position but soon found his entrails spilling as the warrior blurred, moving in front of another knight. Throats, bodies, armor were cut like butter, nothing stopping the silver blade of the fearsome warrior that had stepped in.

The remaining few knights chose to back off at this sight. They were about to drop their heavy gear and make a run for their lives when the sound of cavalry rose. Horses neighed and clopped on the dirt, carrying riders clad in steel.

"All of you, find cover!" Momonga yelled. "Sangria" rushed to his side, readying her blade once more and standing guard in front of one of the houses as the villagers hesitantly went back inside the housing.

"A pleasant day, is it not, Shalltear?" He turned to the vampire.

"It is as you say, Lord Momonga… Say, what do you plan to do for those humans? Will we slaughter them and feed on their despair as they realize their saviour has turned on them?"

"...No. We still don't understand what this world is like despite the slaughter we have prevented. It would be best to scout for some more information before making a real move. And that reminds me. Shadow Demon?"

"...My Lord?" A raspy voice rang out, unseen from view.

"Spy on the village head for now. Move between key figures if there is important information. Retreat at once if you are detected. Am I clear?"

"Yes, My Lord…" The demon retreated into the shadows, hopping from dark spot to dark spot until finding himself beside the bearded man that was the village chief.

"Also, Sangria, it appears magic exists, so hopefully it would not be a surprise for two warriors to take out two platoons of archers and riders. When the arrows come, use some low tier air spells to take them out."

"Yes, My Lord!"

Momonga nodded, a determined and calm expression on the face generated by his illusion skill. Drawing his sheathed blade again, he moved into a low stance.

With the twinge of several dozen strings, a rain of arrows covered the sky. First there were fifty, then fifty more, and fifty more yet again. The archers were at a distance, but could still be seen. As the arrows began to fall closer and closer to their location, the rider knights came closer than ever, from three directions all at once, leaving trails of dust in the air. The onlooking villagers had a face of fear, some accepting their fate, but some still holding hope for the great knight and his companion that were their saviors.

"Now!"

Pointing a palm to the sky, Sangria muttered a simple incantation. "[Widen Magic: Gale Blast]!"

A wave of mana surged to her fingertips and into the grey-white glyph that surfaced in front of her, pushing forward a large blast of wind barely visible to the human eye. Powered and steered by magic, it collided with the rain of arrows, pushing back every single one, causing them to either fly off in the other direction or fall to the ground. One falling arrow even managed to kill a warhorse, stabbing into its neck. As its surprised rider fell to the ground, Momonga dug his feet into the ground. His sword hummed with silver energy, and he reared the blade back, leaping into motion a split second later.

"Platinum Edge!"

It all happened so slowly for the onlookers. One moment there were the knights on horseback, and the next there seemed to be a silvery trail of energy in the air, and then it was all over. The charging riders were lively in motion, but suddenly they froze, like puppets cut from their strings. The horses still ran, but there was a strange difference to their gallops.

And that was when they fell.

Men, horses, blood, hands, and arms all fell forward and collapsed to the ground in two pieces. One was bisected and his horse decapitated, another only lost everything above his chest, his horse missing a chunk of its brain, but the knights were all cut to pieces with the same terrifying accuracy. The houses and trees around them fell into two soon after, kicking up a round of dust.

The archers, on the other hand, could only look on in horror as blood pooled in the gallons around the carnage, making an end to their faith to the gods.

"M-monster…" They dropped whatever things they didn't need and ran for their horses, carrying a wave of frightened voices.

"Sangria?" Momonga turned to look at his companion.

As per his instructions, "Sangria" was forced to refer to Momonga not as "Lord", but as would a good acquaintance. Sangria, of course, was giddy at this news, barely concealing the pride and at the same time embarrassment she felt.

The vampire in disguise glowed blue for a second, before taking to the skies at barely conceivable speed. Flying towards the archers, she sent a [Fireball] at them, making sure they would not survive whatever journey they were about to make. She was curious why her lord had not ordered her to take some in for questioning, but she could not comprehend the wisdom of the Supreme Beings.

Wait, what was she thinking? How could any of these fools have knowledge worthy of Nazarick? Plus, if her lord wanted to extract information, he would have taken those arcane soldiers he mentioned.

Shaking her head, "Sangria" descended beside her companion, amongst a group of cheering villagers. Though they seemed a little disheartened due to her Lord's fearsome power, she saw that her master did not appear displeased, so she held back from slaying all of them then and there for not appreciating a Supreme Being's kindness.

On the other hand, she had to hold back from falling over in adoration at the sight of her master…

Momonga sensed something was wrong with the air, but decided to ignore it as he received praises from the villagers. He was slightly uncomfortable since he knew he was just using them as tools, but he was at least glad that he could save all these lives.

 _Many people don't like isekai, and I don't either, but I'm not going to let a bunch of people die when I can save them..._

Deciding to calm things down, he kept answering the eager questions of the villagers until they were eventually waved off by the village elder.

"Now, I'd like to discuss a few things with you, if you don't mind."

"N-no, of course not! Although, uh… if you wish for gold coins, then it will take some time for us to exchange for those. We're very sorry about that."

Momonga moved his hands in a reassuring manner. "It's no problem. I will not ask for much other than some coins to help get us to the city."

"Then I'll not trouble you for long, Sir… Ainzly." The old man and his wife opened the door to their cottage. It was slightly bigger and included an "office" since he was the chief, but other than that, Momonga considered the lodgings to be very humble.

"Would you like some hot water or tea?" The chief's wife inquired, digging through a chest and retrieving a small box that revealed several aromatic herbs.

"Water is fine." He quickly decided, smiling slightly.

They then began discussing the world, with the player asking from a list of questions that he had prepared beforehand. He mentally made a checklist of everything he wanted to know before inquiring about the currency, retrieving a YGGDRASIL coin from his pocket. It turned out that the game's standard currency was worth roughly two of the new world's gold coins.

Then there was the boiled water. It took roughly 17 minutes in total to prepare, as she had to gather wood, start a fire with flint, fetch water, keep the fire going constantly… it went on and on. This told Momonga quite a few things about this world. Furthermore, from what the chief told him, Carne village was a run-of-the-mill settlement, nothing technologically advanced or behind, just lacking basic plumbing systems compared to major cities.

 _It's established, then. This isn't Midgard or any unreleased part of YGGDRASIL. There are no in-game factions called the Re-Estize Kingdom, the Baharuth Empire, or the Slaine Theocracy._

This excited and worried him at the same time… While physics seemed to be still there, the existence of magic would change the development of a world's drastically. It seemed everyone was just waiting for some major discovery. Gunpowder, or the magical equivalents, would revolutionize any world. Guns were very rare and powerful items in YGGDRASIL. In fact, those who aimed for the [Gunner] classes would have to go through at least a fifth of the game using crossbows and bows first.

There were classes in the new world, but anyone could equip a gun. A magician _could_ use a blade, but they couldn't use any powerful melee weapons. He wasn't sure about the specific level gap, but from his numerous competitive PvP experiences, he guessed the gap between equippable blade and magician level was too far, seeing as no caster ever used one above [Top]-tier.

 _Guns…_ he wondered. _There are lots of videos that make real-world comparisons. The gist of it is that any level 20 physical fighter should be around the level of your average Batman, except with superhuman strength capable of punching through steel. They can simply guess the trajectory and move before the trigger's pressed. Enemies like Death Knights have magical resistance to piercing, and a regular bullet can only dish out a baseball bat's worth of blunt force. In short, it will take heavy weaponry that can do a lot of blunt force damage to take them out._

"Thank you, that will be all. Now…"

They left the chieftain's home soon enough, still exchanging pleasantries. As they walked around town to see all of the villagers helping each other, Momonga was put more at ease. The spirits of the people seemed to be high, despite the few that were still crying. They eventually came upon the pile of cleanly sliced body parts, blood drenching the earth, causing a putrid smell that made many gag.

Staring into the shocked bloodshot eyes of a dead and bisected knight, the village elder sighed.

"That attack..."

Momonga's illusionary face grimaced. "I know. I was afraid of its effects when I first learned this technique as well. However, it gets the job done. If I didn't use it, then the knights would have eventually broken through and killed more of you."

In truth, platinum edge wasn't a real attack skill. He only combined several passive abilities to form it. It would have been considered a normal, hell, even weak attack in the game since [Enochian] only created a level 85 human warrior with a mid-tier build.

The chief had a look of understanding. "We can't thank you enough, Sir Ainzly. Forgive us, but we're going to mourn the dead for a moment."

Momonga didn't say anything, as if giving the villagers a respectful silence, but in reality, he was in shock. He realized the impact of resurrection magic. While it looked like it was in the realm of legend in this world to achieve resurrection magic, the chief said that it had been done before; high ranking adventurers dying on their quests but brought back alive the day after.

Momonga knew three third-tier divine casters could form a [Resurrection Circle], so he did not doubt these claims in the slightest.

"I could order Shalltear to resurrect them… but she doesn't have any of those spells since only the tenth floor had player guards as a last line of defense, and [Wands of Resurrection] are in limited supply…" He muttered to himself.

With a heavy heart, he decided against it. Who knew, maybe in reality, the dead were supposed to stay dead.

"Shalltear, do you hate humans? You're a good actor, but I saw that something was off."

If vampires could blush, she did. "My lord… your attention to detail is impeccable! It's true, humans are mere insects. And working side-by-side with a Supreme Being… it's an honor none of us lowly servants deserve."

"What about Touch Me? Is he an insect?"

"To me, My Lord, that would be the same as referring to Lord Lucifer as a mere angel, or yourself as an imp. You are the Supreme Beings of Nazarick, beyond lowly classifications."

"I see… And don't worry. We'll be working together more in the future."

From her reaction, Shalltear appeared to be delighted. Momonga knew that the vampire had the disadvantage of blood frenzy, and he didn't know how long she could keep the act up. Hell, she was literally panting at the sight of all those dead bodies. He almost had to "excuse" her from the scene a couple of times.

 _Peroroncino made a mistake… then again, who could have thought that the NPCs would become real?_

"Now, Shalltear. Since the Hanzos found no bugs on these knights, get ready to open a [Gate] right below the bodies as you cast a maximized [Fireball] on them. I will have Demiurge bring some ash from his floor."

"Understood, My Lord!"

Momonga was a bit unnerved at how his mind managed to come up with such a plan, and also at how Shalltear was perfectly fine with all of it, but he could think about that later. It was strange; sometimes he felt human, and sometimes his mind transformed to the cold, calculating, but also fiendish demon.

Shaking his head, he sent a [Message] to Demiurge.

[Demiurge. I need you to do something for me.]

[Anything, My Lord.]

[In a moment, I will be sending you around thirty dead humans.]

[...]

[They were knights pillaging a town I decided to save. There will be a [Gate] spell at the sixth floor forest in a minute, and I've asked Omega to disable anti-teleportation on my command. Once everything drops, send some ash and… 9 broken sword and twenty broken pike decorations through the [Gate]. Am I understood?]

[Understood, Lord Momonga!]

[Also, preserve a few bodies and all the minimally damaged horses. That will be all, Demiurge.]

Momonga disconnected the [Message] spell, nodding his head at Shalltear. Raising a hand, he held it in the air for a minute.

[Demiurge. Are the preparations complete?]

[On your mark, my Lord!]

He reconnected to the leader of the pleiades.

[Now, Omega!]

With a silent cast of [Gate], the bodies and weapons fell through a miasma of red energy focused on the ground. A split second later, piles of ash erupted from where the gate used to be- followed by several weapons in a state of disrepair. Immediately, a wave of explosive flame set over the waste, revealing a smoldering pile of ash and weapons in serious disrepair.

"Good job, everyone…" He muttered.

The mourning villagers noticed the commotion as soon as the [Fireball] exploded, some of them rushing from the graveyard over to the former pile of dead bodies.

"Sorry about that. Most of those weapons were designed for cavalry anyways, so you won't find much use in them." Momonga apologized to one of the villagers, a middle-aged man who was the eldest of the young men that had come to investigate.

"True, but we also need money to help rebuild our village… What am I saying, Sir Ainzly? These are the invaders you killed- feel free to do whatever you wish with them."

The villagers behind him seemed to agree, nodding amongst themselves.

Momonga nodded, considering the situation. The man had raised a good point. It would be impolite for the villagers to claim ownership of the reclaimed gear when they were defenseless against the knights.

 _I could sell the swords to the villagers. After all, they will probably be more interested in investing in defense after this attack._

He shook his head, a stern expression coming over his face.

 _What am I thinking? That would be a dick move. I have to consider human emotions too..._

"In that case, it would be troublesome for you all to get invaded and killed after I went through saving this village. I will take a few, but please keep enough to arm at least half of your village."

The man nodded, an expression of gratitude on his face. "Thank you, Sir Ainzly!"

"It's no problem. On the other hand, I'd like to purchase some of your livestock and produce in the future."

"You'll have to talk to the chief again, then. We won't forget this, kind sir!"

Momonga faked a blush and rubbed the back of his head. "Really, it's no big problem. You should return to…" He trailed off, eyes pointing towards the graveyard.

The man rushed off with the rest of his group back towards the mourning site, giving Momonga a space of time to consider the situation. Not getting the shadow demons to follow the surviving archers was a mistake, but he wasn't sure if they would report to their superiors after getting their platoon wiped out in a few attacks. Plus, there was probably also the problem of distance…

The knights were probably from the Baharuth empire, but after hearing about those religious casters, he would not be surprised if they were from this "theocracy" as well. Like that, almost an hour had passed, with most of the dropped weapons collected ad a payment of gratitude from the settlement. The Enri girl was trying to start a conversation with him every other minute or so, with Momonga finally realizing what had happened.

 _For some reason, I feel like I want to cave in my head just from hearing her voice. Is this unusual?_

"Lord Ainzly, Lord Ainzly!" The girl pleaded once again.

"...what is it this time?"

"T-this time it's _really_ really important, I swear! We sighted a platoon of warriors on horseback coming this direction! I-it w-would-"

"Don't worry, I will do this for free."

"But that's not what I-"

He dashed off with a charming smile and a wave before zooming at almost supersonic speeds.

 _Another day, another bullet dodged!_

* * *

His first impression of the Head Warrior was a brave and honorable man. Gazef and his men were dispatched by the king of the Re-Estize Kingdom to investigate the recent incidents of multiple villages razed by what looked like knights of the Baharuth Empire.

Momonga wasn't terribly surprised at his arrival. The Eight Edge Assassins had informed him of the situation mere minutes before the villagers had. He, however, took a liking to the warrior immediately; he was the embodiment of several qualities all desirable in an honorable and loyal servant, to both citizens and king. It turned out that the chief's description of the man lacked exaggeration.

 _He's also supposedly the strongest warrior in the kingdom. If those claims are to be believed, then that should speak a lot for this world._

"Please, no need for a ceremony at this moment. I saved these people because I could, and I happened to pass by. It's also the right thing to do."

"A capable and compassionate warrior, then. I believe you're also travelers, so I will not waste your time for long. Could you tell me more about the blackguards that attacked this village?"

"It's not a problem since it's so late already, and we actually plan to stay here for the night. However, the knights that attacked this village have either escaped on horseback or are already dead."

"I don't see many bodies, but that pile of ashes… Did you strike them down?"

"Yes. My companion and I killed them… As for the ashes, I did not want to bother the village-folk with too many corpses, so I asked my companion here to burn them with a spell." He gestured to the polite form of "Sangria".

"I see… And you are?"

"Sangria Oras, pleasure to meet you, warrior of the Kingdom." The vampire in disguise gave a mock bow, smiling in her facade.

"The pleasure's mine." Gazed chuckled.

"One more thing, gentlemen, this village was attacked by knights dressed in armor of the Baharuth empire. I'd prefer if you did not cause a disturbance with all your weapons, so if you don't mind, we can all lay them down in a pile somewhere."

"I'll have to politely refuse that offer, Sir Ainzly. This sword was given to me by the king himself. I cannot set it down…"

"Since you're all soldiers of the kingdom, that will be fine."

"Anyways," Gazef changed the topic. "I hope you will not mind if we stay here for the night, chieftain? We'll need to be in top condition if we're to keep searching for any other invaders in the area."

The elderly man smiled. "Of course, Warrior Captain. We would never protest such a thing. And you, Sir Ainzly? I hope you will accept staying a night here."

Momonga looked away for a moment as if considering the option. "I'm on a tight schedule. It will depend on the situation…"

The chieftain's mood dropped at that, but Momonga had expected this. As if on cue, a member of Gazef's band of elite warriors rushed to their side, panting heavily.

"Captain! Men accompanied by flying monsters have circled the village! What should we do?"

"Lead us to them, then. Chieftain, can I trust you to lead your people to safety?" Gazef asked with a stern face.

"I'll keep them out of your way…"

With that, the chieftain rushed back to the villagers who were about to settle down for the day, calling out to them and sending the villagers into worry once again. They wondered if their savior would aid them again, after already having done so much for them. Their worry was somewhat eased by the presence of the Warrior Captain, who they believed to be on equal footing with Ainzly.

Momonga and Gazef stared through the opening of a darkened brick house, its design simple and filled with dust. Sangria stood like a guardian at the entrance, but that would be a rather ridiculous statement given her height.

"Sangria" stood just a head higher than her true form, though that still wasn't tall at all.

Despite the mission the warriors were on, Momonga still caught several of Gazef's men eyeing her and jeering at the cleric-knight, though Sangria did not even bat an eye.

 _If I chose a more intimidating disguise or brought Albedo, this wouldn't be happening. Though I somehow feel sorry for those men…_

Batting an eye over to his companion, he found her standing guard, impassive as ever.

 _Thank god she's not acting in character._

He managed to send a [Message] to her just as he left for the village… Looking to Gazef, who he hoped would be a good friend, Momonga shared his concern. If he had been at level 29 and faced off against a large group of decently-equipped noobs, then he would have been worried, especially if those noobs could all summon Archangel Flames and cast third-tier buffs and debuffs.

 _Speaking of which, sorry, Gazef. You'll have to get your ass kicked around for a moment while I observe the fight._

Seeing through the Captain's concealed panic and frustration, Momonga cleared his throat.

"Now, Mr. Stronoff… Unless there's some strategic benefit to this village that I'm not aware of, I can see only one reason why an organization like that would be here…"

Gazef grimaced. "It comes with the job of warrior captain. Judging by the number of angel summoners, I would guess our guests are from the Slaine Theocracy, and most likely a special operations unit of theirs… One of the infamous Six Scriptures, I'd guess. In both numbers and ability, they seem to trump us."

The man shrugged as if uncaring of his tough luck.

"They've gone through the trouble of getting the Noble Faction to rid me of my gear. It would be rude to not entertain them. Ah, that snake of a man…" He snorted, then turned to Momonga.

"Sir Ainzly, how much would it cost to hire you? Name your price."

"...Unfortunately, I'll have to refuse. I'd rather not be under the eye of a powerful country. If these soldiers are so well equipped, then it would not be unreasonable if they had divination magic."

"I see… What if I con-"

"Forget it. I'll step in if I have to. Sorry for these harsh words, Warrior Captain, but I hope to understand the situation more before I take action in a skirmish between nations."

Gazef sighed. "It's settled, then. Thank you, Sir Ainzly. Without you this village would have been razed to the ground. Take care of yourself."

Momonga- Ainzly looked towards the setting sun. "Should you fail, Stronoff- I will protect this village. I swear this on my name, Ainzly."

The captain was amused. "No surname? Just Sir Ainzly?"

"Indeed. I no longer have a family and barely remember them, so I abandoned my surname."

"I see…" The man breathed an air of relief, and smiled warmly. "Should you need anything, Sir Ainzly, simply visit the Royal Capital and I shall gift you anything you desire."

"There's no need for that."

"I can't thank you enough then, Sir Ainzly. Time grows short- the only thing left for me to do is charge towards the enemy."

Momonga understood his mentality. The opposition ruled the skies; moving in special routes would only lead to slaughter. Spreading the men out was ineffective, as they would be easily defeated by the magic casters. Arrows were also pointless since the angels were practically immune to them. Simply charging in a good formation would be the best they could do.

As the two bid their farewells, Ainzly felt some melancholy as the form of Gazef became a small dot in the vast distances travelled. The demon raised two fingers to the side of his head.

[Eight Edge Assassins. Capture and incapacitate the ambushers, but leave the ones that will be engaged by the riders alone.]

Disconnecting from the spell, Ainzly retrieved a pair of binoculars before focusing it on the charging band of riders.

"Can I watch too, My Lord? I wish to see the look of despair on those soldiers' faces as they are slaughtered by mere Archangel flames…" Sangria spoke.

Ainzly sweated, putting down the binoculars. "Fine. Disable the divination spell above them first; we don't want any attention from a human supremacist nation."

With a confirmation too sweet for what she had in mind, Shalltear cast a [Message], and a moment later, Ainzly could see the cracking of a hidden spell above the magic casters, causing their leader and several troops to look up in confusion.

Ainzly looked on as the soldiers went into range of the spell casters, and with a motion from the leader, waves of angels descended upon Gazef and his band. Several men tried firing arrows at the summoners, but those were either blocked by the angels or defensive magic. As the warriors went within casting range, however, that was when things truly went downhill. With the appearance of several blue glyphs, the horses cried before giving out and collapsing. A moment later, offensive and debuff spells rained upon them, knocking the men off their horses and ripe to be picked off by the angels.

Gazef seemingly forgot about potential mind-affecting spells that could be used on beasts, Momonga noted. The captain had a brief look of panic on his face as he fell from his horse.

Sangria, on the other hand, was getting a kick out of seeing this reaction. Moving her divination spell around the battlefield, she relished in the panicked look on the faces of the warriors as they fell to magic.

From a tactical perspective, Gazef telling his men to retreat would have been a bad move. Although they could not defeat the angels, they would buy some time for Gazef.

 _Those men must be very loyal to follow him like that. They appear to be elite soldiers too, given their large variety of gear._

The men had apparently been ordered by their captain to draw out the sentries surrounding the village, but they had returned like loyal dogs after having done their task. What they didn't know was that without the Eight Edge assassins disabling most of the casters, none of the soldiers would have returned alive.

 _Good thing I ordered that, then. From what Gazef implied, this group of magic casters is a black-ops unit, so investigation by this Theocracy would be kept under wraps. I need to remove all evidence once I defeat the casters. Erasing the village… no, that would cause concern from the kingdom as well._

The village must be paying taxes to the kingdom, Ainzly thought. If he chose a faction to align with, then he would probably getting on the Kingdom's good books first. However, judging by Gazef's dislike for the nobles and how they had stripped him of his gear, he did not think he would like this kingdom very much.

He watched as Gazef swung against an angel— and found the blade lodged within. With barely concealed frustration, he gave up as the Captain realized that the angel was healing the damage, pushing the blade out with amazing strength.

 _Only warrior skills and magic items will work, Gazef. Did you forget that?_

However, the warrior quickly corrected himself. Teeth gritted in concentration, Ainzly saw a red glow around Gazef.

 _What's this? I know there are skills with similar visual effects, but Gazef isn't a berserker or a vampire._

The player observed the Captain with renewed interest. The man pressed the attack as soon as the glow faded around him- and then, there was one dead angel.

 _That should be a low-tier channel skill. I could have forgotten about many of the lower tier skills, but I haven't seen anything like that before…_

"Chief, can you leave us while we decide what to do about this?"

"Of course, Sir Ainzly." The man bowed slightly before stepping out of the house.

Once Ainzly made sure he was gone, he closed his eyes and focused on the storage space within him… and retrieved a silver necklace. The hexagonal silver plate attached to the chain had a sickly green iris engraved onto it. The eye glowed for a moment— before a floating eyeball materialized beside his head.

"Appraisal Eye, use [Full Analysis] on Gazef."

The fist-sized organ looked towards its master, before tipping forwards and back, as if nodding. As the tendons behind it swam and flowed like a wave, the eyeball turned with perfect accuracy towards the warrior in the distance, following the man's every move. It did this for several seconds before stopping, its iris and sclera now swimming across the milky white surface to lock onto its target.

With a silent whir, the iris began spinning, and the dark brown sclera glowed blue. Ainzly's eyes followed, and his mind flowed with information.

* * *

 **{Warrior Captain of the Re-Estize Kingdom}**

 **Gazef Stronoff-(Lvl 29)**

 **Race Levels:**

 **Human (N/A)**

 **Class Levels:**

 **Fighter (13)**

 **Mercenary (2)**

 **Champion (7)**

 **Sergeant (3)**

 **Sword Master (4)**

 **Info:**

 **Gazef Stronoff was born on 21/ME/571 from Iza (Lavender) and Rowan Stronoff in Dunham village. He is, and also believed to be the strongest warrior serving the Re-Estize Kingdom. (Read More)**

 **Skills…**

 **Intimidate(3), Athletics(11), Simple Weapons Mastery(15), Sword Mastery(15), Mounted Combat(5), Combat Expertise(12) (Read More)**

 **+Martial Arts+ (27/29) [Limit: 6]**

 **[Slash], [Focus Battle Aura], [Twofold Slash of Light], [Fourfold Slash of Light], [Sixfold Slash of Light], [Instant Counter], [Full Throttle], [Flow Acceleration], [Instant Reflex], [Body Strengthening], [Enhanced Magic Resistance], [Mental Enhancement], [Pace of the Wind], [Possibility Sense], [Sense Weakness], [Magical Weapon Enchantment] (Read More)**

 **Abilities…**

* * *

The rest of the page was as expected for a level 29, albeit slightly less powerful warrior. The warrior skills, however, were replaced by something else entirely.

 _What's this? A new mechanic?_

The [Martial Arts] section was added to the [Skills] section of the profile. The abilities were occasionally very similar to the standard warrior skills of YGGDRASIL, but some felt more like utility skills. A brief hovering his "cursor" over [Slash], for example, revealed that it was nearly identical to [Lesser Cleave]. [Magical Weapon Enchantment], on the other hand, was very different. Special enchantments sometimes required mana to activate, but that was through the [Mana Channeling] skill.

 _These are attacks that did not exist in the game. Just what has happened?_

As he opened up a detailed description of the new abilities, Momonga turned his head in amusement.

 _They consume a bit of HP and place physical debuffs to use._

He was proven right as Gazef appeared to be more out of breath than ever after executing an attack of six simultaneous slashes.

 _Not bad. Other than that, this is pretty much the same as YGGDRASIL except with real combat skills._

Since melee combat in the game was based purely on the user's own combat skills and how they implemented their build and abilities into it, there was a spike of interest in swordsmanship lessons in the real world. Suzuki himself only attended one lecture, however, before deciding that most lessons were either cash grabs or self-defence lessons.

Conventional street self-defence was rather ineffective when the opposition was armed with guns, crossbows, teleportation, and time stop, after all.

Instead, he simply looked to YGGDRASIL's complimentary swordsmanship guidelines, and what he could get online. It wasn't like there were no volumes on combat after over two thousand years of never-ending war, after all. Well, most of the volumes were rather useless. Fighting with two giant blades was unheard of in the real world, and also impractical. That was why Momonga chose to learn as many combat and strategy fundamentals as possible.

 _But I have actual fighting skills in my head now. I know how to balance my attacks, how to properly feint, and how to recover and take advantage of every opening._

"Well, chief, I've made my choice on what side to take now. I must assist the captain."

Bullshit. He had just slaughtered almost 150 soldiers. It was clear who he was helping, Momonga thought. The chief bought this lie with a smile, however, before returning to the shelter.

"Whenever you're ready, Sangria."

The vampire looked away, embarrassed, before tentatively setting a palm on Ainzly's shoulder. With a blue glow, they were both levitated into the air.

 _[Mass Fly] doesn't require touch to work. Does she not know?_ Ainzly pondered.

His thoughts were cast away, however, as he once again took pleasure in the feeling of wind brushing against his skin. The sounds around him became a gentle whistle; the only sound he could hear was the dying screams of Gazef's soldiers.

 _God damn it._

* * *

Nigun Grid Luin smirked. Their prey had walked right into their trap, despite all the warnings they had given. If anything, it further tempted the rat Gazef Stronoff. Nigun had to admit, the man had a good sense of loyalty. Unfortunately, that loyalty was misguided as a result of the corrupt nobles.

The Theocracy initially funded E-Rantel to become a stronghold of humanity; capable of bringing out talented warriors through its prosperity. That prosperity, however, lead to the eventual corruption of the nobles, far more arrogant and wicked than any seen before. As a noble himself, Nigun regretted to admit that the upper class of Re-Estize were scum, not worthy of their titles and power.

All was well for the Theocracy, on the hand, but they still had to complete the missions the gods determined for humanity.

But there was one question.

Where the fuck were his troops?

Nigun clicked his tongue in annoyance. There were no reports of movement from the angels. He could investigate further, but he liked to believe that nothing was wrong.

 _I'll handle this when we finish Stronoff._

The men with Nigun had clustered into one group to aid in killing the Head Warrior. The largest gathering of elite battlemages rained down spells of all kind at Gazef, keeping him from killing the angels.

As Gazef started to fall, Nigun smirked. The hunt was at its end—

He was amazed when the captain began ranting and stood with wobbly strength again, promising swift justice to those who opposed his kingdom. He had to scoff, however. Sometimes men needed to accept their fate.

"Nonsense, Stronoff. You'll die here exactly because you babble such nonsense."

He rolled his eyes as Gazef began going on about some man strong as him in the village.

"Bluffing won't help you, Stronoff. Angels, kill him…"

Waves of angels descended from the skies, painting a beautiful picture of blood and war, of men and mice, of conspiracies and betrayal…

At that moment, Gazef's life flashed before his own eyes. His unsuspecting birth in a village, the discovery of his talent, and his eventual rise to become the blade of the king…

His eyes widened as a red angel descended from the skies between the wave and himself, her angelic form dropping her silver platinum companion to the ground. She flew back up into the skies a swift moment later, a devious smirk on her face.

He looked back to see Ainzly standing with his arms crossed, not a hint of fear in his body.

Gazef closed his eyes. His job was done here.

* * *

Nigun looked at the scene before him.

 _We won! The gods favour us, as usual!_

Something was amiss, however. The packs of angels were frozen in their attack, arms and blades slashed down. Nigun looked to his men.

"Well? Order the angels to disperse."

"W-we're trying, sir. It's like they're stuck."

Nigun raised an eyebrow. What had happened? Did Gazef use one of the kingdom's treasures? He knew that the warrior was without those relics, but…

The captain of the Sunlight Scripture breathed a sigh of relief as the angels began moving again. It would seem—

"How weak…"

One moment there were at least thirty angels, and the next a bright slash of white energy appeared across all the angels.

The skies in front of Nigun turned into a cascade of ascending light particles. As they dispersed, the Sunlight Scripture gasped.

"W-what?"

A man in brilliant silver-platinum armor stood in front of the collapsed form of Gazef, an amused smirk on his face. He was not young, although some youthful features still adorned his aging face. Jet black hair contrasted with milky white skin and amber yellow eyes.

Nigun was suddenly reminded of the teachings about the features of the despicable incubus race, and how much this man resembled that image. He was sure this one wasn't an incubus, but disregarding his age, the man shared enough distinctive features to raise an eyebrow.

"Gentlemen of the Slaine Theocracy… I have a deal that you can't refuse."

The men behind Nigun froze in fear. To hear the voice of the man that had slain thirty angels so easily… it seemed impossible. Even Gazef should have been heavily breathing. Yet this man appeared as if he did not even lift a finger.

Was this the actual head warrior, then? Was the man they had fought just a body double?

"Oh, silly me. I've forgotten to introduce myself. My name is Ainzly."

The air was silent for a second. Nigun and his men almost forgot to breathe, before they realized the expectant look on the man's face.

"M-my apologies. I am Nigun Grid Luin, leader of the Sunlight Scripture. These magic casters are with me."

"And this… Scripture you speak of. Do you answer to the Slaine Theocracy?"

Nigun looked at the man, confused. Almost everyone knew about the Scriptures, though no identities or abilities were ever revealed. Their name spread fear- and that was their weapon. A collection of omnipresent death squads willing to slaughter for humanity's wellbeing.

"Yes. We serve humanity and the Gods."

"Interesting… Tell me about these "Gods" you speak of. Do they walk amongst you?"

"N-no. They are either watching from heaven or passing instructions to the cardinals."

"And your cardinals… I presume they ordered you to take out the strongest warrior of the kingdom; no doubt their trump card?"

Ainzly was silent for a minute, though he stared right at the Scripture.

"I will give you one chance, and one chance only. Give up, and you will die painlessly. Should you choose to oppose me, however…"

He chuckled.

"You will know despair."

Nigun felt a bead of sweat run down his head. He had to convince this man. Fast.

"Please wait! We are killing Gazef because he is a pawn of the corrupt nobles. Without him, humanity will prevail in the unification of the Kingdom and the Theocracy! There would be no more war amongst us…"

That ought to do it, Nigun thought. A man like this must have lost many friends in the fire of war. It didn't matter what hero or warrior he was, or maybe even a God-Kin. All warriors had lost a part of themselves in war.

The man stopped as if considering his words. "I did not come out of my slumber just to see the corruption of men kill a warrior with good heart. I also apologize in advance; I cannot let the Theocracy's delusional views to succeed the world."

Nigun gritted his teeth. So, a blasphemous man? Did no one realize that humanity was destined to prevail? Why did they all oppose the gods, when the divines had clearly descended six hundred years ago?

 _What was that part about slumber? Never mind._

"I'll have no more of this. As we practiced!" The captain roared, though there was a tone of uncertainty in his voice. No one could feel the power to stand straight in front of the man that had destroyed thirty angels in one swoop, after all. His mind tried to rationalize such power, and he did a good job of denying it, believing the warrior used most of his energy in that move and was barely able to stand.

Nigun's men had seen better days, but they were still soldiers; every one of them. Their talent and skill was forged and tuned in war. They would fight on, regardless of fear and opposition. A quarter of the casters began a salvo of spells at Ainzly, while the others began summoning angels once again. The Principality of Observation was in wait, using its defensive aura to protect the magic casters.

"I'll humor you for a while, then. Sangria, get our friend out of here."

The men were startled as out of nowhere, a red flash snatched Gazef from the ground and disappeared in a blur. Ainzly smiled, not flinching at all as several [Bolt] cantrips and offensive spells landed on his unarmored areas. The soldiers gasped, seeing none of their spells do any damage.

"[Legendary Magical Nullification]... it provides immunity against magic attacks lower than level 90," Ainzly muttered.

The roles of the magic casters switched as the offensive mages began summoning their own angels while the summoners that had been previously calling forth angels began firing spells at him. They also quickly realized the futility of their effort as Ainzly stood doing nothing and wearing a pleasant smile.

"Nothing's working…" One of the soldiers yelled with growing panic.

"Keep firing! It's the only way!" Nigun roared.

The men happily obliged. One man decided to load up a slingshot, arming it with a large pellet. Releasing the projectile, the stone sailed true, until Ainzly caught it in his hands moments before it could hit his chest.

"I'm afraid you'll need to work on your aim. A good slinger should be able to hit a headshot on anything in their view." Ainzly concluded, drawing more gasps.

It was at this moment that the angels had all been summoned, manifesting into existence from the will and mana of their summoners. The magic casters were all out of breath, a result of their growing fear and despair.

"Angels! Attack!" Nigun commanded, fear in his voice knowing that their mana supplies were all but down to a few more simple spells. The Principality of Observation moved into motion with the mass of angels, shooting forward to support its kin.

"What spirit…" Ainzly muttered, out of ear's reach.

The second wave of angels circled around Ainzly, supported by a repertoire of buff spells. Once again, the enemies descended upon him.

But something was wrong. As acid javelins and angelic blades came upon him, they all froze. If one could perceive events faster than the speed of light, they would have seen time freeze and Ainzly draw a circular slash of light around himself that expanded and cut all of the spells and angels to nothing.

The magic casters felt their jaws drop as all of their hard work; years upon years of grueling training and growing their talents as humanity's brightest reduced to nothing. And in front of a warrior, no less. The superiority of the magic caster over the warrior was previously undisputed due to the large variety of applications, but this man- no, demon took everything they knew and threw it out of the window. Third tier spells of every category and element; arrows and blades; bullets and bolts all did nothing.

"[Blade Time] is an essential skill for overwhelming your enemy, despite the array of anti-time stop measures available. It's particularly useful on monsters, as they have fewer countermeasures." Ainzly instructed.

The Scripture branch that had committed genocide without another thought only weeks ago stepped back in fear, cursing as Ainzly began slowly advancing.

"What kind of monster are you!? There's no way so many angels and spells could be destroyed in one attack!"

"We're fucked…"

"How is this possible!"

Amidst the chaos, one voice rose above the others. Nigun cackled with mad fear, trying to justify the use of the holy relic. He knew the cardinals entrusted this relic to him only as an item to calm the men's fear. Realm of heroes or not (and in the case of Gazef, barely), using an angel that had single-handedly destroyed the demon gods on some man that was barely half as strong as a god-kin was unfeasible.

 _It would be worse if this man took it for himself,_ Nigun reasoned.

"Buy me some time if you want to live! I will use the most powerful angel to defeat him!" The captain of the Sunlight Scripture commanded, mustering up whatever hope he had left.

 _You're worthy of being destroyed by this holy will of the gods, Ainzly. Monsters like you should not exist!_

The men managed to gather their courage for one last run. They threw everything at Ainzly— flasks of poison, pellets, third tier spells… Yet nothing was working.

"The highest order of angels? I may have to pay a bit of attention if it's an Aesphere. Shalltear?"

Out of nowhere, a red flash fell to the ground. The soldiers gasped at the magnificent beauty before them— a girl with red blood eyes and cloaked in red armor that could only belong to an angel. With her white wings, it would certainly seem that way.

Shalltear Bloodfallen descended in her combat form, ready to annihilate whatever it was that put her master on edge.

"A-an angel?"

"Shut it! Can't you see she's working with him?"

Ainzly did not care for their remarks in the slightest. There was something else on his mind, however.

"I can't use my Appraisal eye when I use this skill, and since he activated it already, the eye won't detect the spell until the angel is actually summoned. So..."

" _[Enochian: Dispel]"_

The silent use of the ability was only shown by the dark glyph that glowed at Ainzly's feet. A wave of black, unholy energy washed over him, and no longer was the white knight. In place of that holy image stood a demon; armor constructed from the darkness itself and terrifying eyes of red.

" _[Hell's Edge]. [Blessing of Wrath]. [Champion's Grace]. [Immovable Mountain]. [Dancing Fortress]. [Titanic Strength]. [Gladiator's Enlightenment]."_ The man before them flowed with incomprehensible power, sending many men outright fainting.

 _As I predicted! He must be a demon god!_ Nigun's mind raced at the implications of that.

 _He must have been sealed away during the Age of Heroes. But why are there no records of a demon that looked like this?_

He chuckled, thinking of the riches and fame he would get for putting rest to this pollution that stained the world.

As the Sunlight Scripture looked back at their captain, they found hope. Hope that humanity would live on despite the demon that had appeared before them. Hope that they themselves would live on. Brilliant blue light stung their eyes, but the mortals could not pry their eyes off the holy sight manifesting before them.

"Behold! The glorious visage of the highest order of angels! Dominion Authority!" Nigun announced with mad glee.

It was as if a new moon had been made; blue celestial light eclipsing the skies. A royal scepter held in its vaguely human form, and pairs of majestic white wings fused with the glyph that was its head. Angels, as beings of logic and reason, had perfectly symmetrical designs. It was a symbol of authority from the realm it descended from and purity at the same time.

It brought cheers and relief and joy to their faces. They cried out in elation at the holy sight before them that would surely vanquish this evil. Blood boiled in excitement.

All across the multiverse, there was one unified thought and prayer.

 _Now, they could kill Ainz Ooal Gown._

Now, they could kill Ainzly.

 _This time, he would be the one to be afraid._

This time, he would be unable to stand against a virtue of pure might.

 _He would learn his foolishness before the power of the gods._

He would forget his blasphemy and bow before the power of the gods.

…

The men savored in the fear that Ainzly must have been feeling. He and his companion were perfectly still, not a movement was made. They must have been terrified.

"So, what do you think, Ainzly? Only an angel of this power is worthy of taking out filth like you."

The men jeered and cheered with Nigun, becoming one with the mob. They grinned at their victory, which was close in sight.

Not only had they killed Gazef Stronoff, the trump card of the Kingdom and its strongest warrior, they had managed to take out a demon god.

"It was memorable while you were alive, demon. Have fun in hell… Use it, most exalted of all angels. Exterminate this world's filth! Use the strongest attack"

The Angel did not nod or make any kind of reply. Moving its arms, the scepter shattered into fragments that began orbiting the angel.

 _[Holy Smite]_

Like a curtain falling, the ethereal light descended from heaven itself, sending a beam of pure holy energy to the earth. It should have vaporized him. It should have killed him instantly.

But something was wrong.

Surely, but slowly as ever, Ainzly stepped out of the aftermath of the attack, not even a bruise on him judging by his calm stroll. He remained standing— and for a moment the men wondered if their brains had ceased to function.

But it wasn't a dream.

"Where is the highest order of angel?" Ainzly inquired curiously as if he was a pedestrian asking for directions.

The men found their mouths and jaws unhinged, unable to swallow the rising tension they felt in their necks.

"No? I see only a seventh tier angel— nothing much. I find this appetizer to be disappointing, to say the least."

…

Ainzly shrugged casually, though it was rather strange to see a hulking demon in that dreadful armor to do so. "I'll have to use what's offered, then."

Leaping into the air and leaving a crater at his feet, Ainzly _grabbed_ the angel, twirling his body and sending the massive being hurtling towards the earth. An earth-shaking vibration was coupled with motes of light.

Ainzly landed gracefully, cracking the earth with his heavy armor and impacting the ground with slightly bent knees. He walked slowly to the angel, picking up the monster by its neck as if it was some kind of bar fight.

The men watched with horror as Ainzly grabbed hold of one of its wings, pinning the titanic angel to the ground with his leg. With a slow creak, the feathered appendage began tearing, breaking off into motes of light.

The angel shrieked, emitting a cry that made the mages cringe in pain. Ainzly began working on the other wings, ripping them off one by one until the angel was without any chance of flight.

Ainzly stood proudly at the sight of his own work, admiring the view he had created.

"What do you gentlemen think? Should we add a dash of creativity to end this performance?"

They were silent.

"Oh my, what a tough crowd. Unreasonably high standards these days…"

Backing up a few meters, Ainzly went into a sprinter's prowl, limbering up his legs with a few mountain climbers. With a burst of energy that destroyed the earth beneath him, Ainzly accelerated past the speed of sound, creating a shockwave that sent the Sunlight Scripture stumbling backwards from the shock alone.

He was gone in a blink of the eye, and suddenly the angel lying in defeat was gone as well. They could, however, see the disappearing figure in the distance, and dirt settled to reveal a massive gash in the earth.

In the distance, Ainzly was running with speed that made his legs look almost like a storm, dragging and pressing the angel into the earth. With each second, more and more motes of light were left in the dust. At the seven seconds mark, the celestial being had been grounded to nothing but dust.

The Sunlight Scripture promptly fainted.

* * *

 **A/N: So, I'm sure some of you will be upset that Ainz… or rather, Ainzly (a more demon-like name) found out about the Sunlight scripture before Gazef arrived. However, I find it OOC in canon for Momonga to have considered that the Theocracy could be behind the attack with no evidence given. Sure, in game factions may ask you to dress up as another faction and attack them to cause hostilities between the other factions, but Momonga doesn't say or think anything about that.**

 **The Sorcerer King is no more than a man in terms of intellect, unless it's fighting intellect. He'll need to rely on spies constantly if he wants to know what's happening in the world.**

 **Note: Ainzly is NOT and Incubus.**

 ** **Review!****


	4. Misplaced

**To address one point about Ainzly being too human and saving everyone, please consider the fact that he let every single one of Gazef's men (who fought the scripture) die when he could have saved them. He ordered Shalltear to hunt down retreating enemies. He brutally bisected almost a hundred soldiers instantaneously without feeling a hint of emotion. He took twenty dead bodies just because he wanted the money.**

 **He's not nice. He just aided the Kingdom.**

* * *

After the defeat of the Sunlight Scripture, the crown of Ainz Ooal Gown returned victoriously to the village, healing the injured Gazef Stronoff. The warrior thanked them with all the gratitude he could muster and insisted on accompanying the two on their journey to E-Rantel.

Ainzly's alibi of travelers heading for the kingdom had come to bite him in unexpected ways. He had two options now: claim that they travelled using [Mass Fly], or accompany Gazef. Avoiding Gazef or making an excuse would just raise suspicion, which Ainzly did not want to cause in an important figure.

If they accompanied Gazef, they might acquire loads of information and potential support from the kingdom, but they would be also feeding information directly into the kingdom. They didn't have enough intel on this world to form a reliable cover, which would just cause unnecessary suspicion.

Momonga, or rather, Ainzly (he still experienced turmoil over his choice) went with the safest option. He would be getting into direct contact with the nobles if he went with Gazef and he did not want to be used due to his lacking knowledge of the world, so a short trip with Shalltear would be best.

The encounter with the theocracy and the kingdom was thus put to an end with a large group of shadow demons trailing the head warrior and the villagers cheering for their saviors as they left the settlement.

"I suppose this is it, Mr. Stronoff. I hope our paths will cross again."

"The same to you, Sir Ainzly. Remember, if you ever need anything, simply visit my residence. It's just to the right of a tavern called "The Dancing Lizardman"."

As Gazef's mount, healed as a courtesy of Sangria. trotted down the grass hills, Ainzly looked to his red companion.

"Well, Sangria?"

Shalltear placed her left hand on Ainzly's shoulder and together with a blue glow they lifted off into the skies, shooting past the foliage and forests.

* * *

Ainzly was not sure what to think of Shalltear's hand on his shoulder. He felt like telling her about it, but something in his instincts told him that would be a dangerous move.

 _This is getting awkward. I mean, none of the NPCs are older than six._

The NPCs, although they took on their intended personalities, only had so many memories. None of them were even close to being an adult. What really sent a shiver down his spine was their apparent sentience before the game ended.

 _They took everything we said as…_ _As if we were gods._

He did not know if they truly had sentience when they were in the game, but something was amiss.

 _I can't deal with that now. I just memorized some key data about the NPCs, but it's time to think of a way to deal with the city._

Thanks to the scouting provided by Nazarick, Ainzly felt a breath of relief when the Eyeball Corpse monsters did not report any type of high-level watchman. It seemed this world was incredibly weak on YGGDRASIL standards.

 _Pre 1.1, I would say._

A detailed report of the city would be awaiting him at home.

 _Home, huh…_

"Shalltear, communicate with me using a [Message Ring] if it's required. Once we see some more developed civilization, dispel your [Flight] spell and we'll walk the rest of the way."

"My lord, is it really necessary for you to walk among human filth? May I suggest a steed, perhaps?"

Ainzly chuckled. "That would be suspicious if that man Stronoff asked the guards about us."

Shalltear looked like she didn't get it for a moment, but quickly understood her lord's intentions.

 _I don't plan to stay for long, but I've got a good cover figured out._

[Shalltear, I believe this may be uncomfortable for you, but rest assured, this will be a short trip that will give us much insight into this world.]

After an apology from the Valkyrie, Ainzly made his subordinate recite the cover they'd made. There wasn't much else to be said; they wouldn't become adventurers or anything. They would just let their scouts infiltrate the city.

With Shalltear silent, Ainzly pondered over his current circumstances and remembered another affair to be taken care of.

[Demiurge, may I have your attention for a moment?]

[My lord?]

[How goes the progress of your research? Has Neuronist acquired any information from the prisoners?]

[Lord Momonga, I've determined that the humans are identical to YGGDRASIL's low level humans. Our scans revealed that none of the Knight prisoners had a resurrection anchor, so we revived them and began interrogation. As you ordered previously, we also reforged the low-quality weapons and turned them into gold using the exchange box. One interesting phenomenon, my lord, is that undead summons can now become permanent if the spell is cast near a corpse.]

[Oh? And tell me, how did you confirm this?]

[Titus discovered this when he attempted to create a soul eater for one of the homunculus maids. The spell locked on to one of the dead horses at a 57 meter range. I suspected this effect, so we used a time acceleration spell on Titus and the soul eater.]

[I see. I assume the dead will be converted to death knights and soul eaters, so use them to reinforce the security of Nazarick. I also permit the use of undead summons for excursions to the outside world. Otherwise, once there is a sufficient force, have the Overlord librarians summon as many undead as they can and take their gear to the exchange box.]

Though he had never confirmed it, judging by how his skill-created items could be exchanged for coin, the undead summons could theoretically drop their items and could create a small income for the guild.

[Understood, my Lord. As usual, your insight is—]

[What information has been extracted from the prisoners?]

[Ah, I feel the information best summarized in a written report. Should I…]

[Summarize the key points. I have the time.]

* * *

They approached the gates of the fortress city, confident expressions on their faces. Ainzly strode forward, the guards eyeing the sword at his hip. Sangria's blade was attached to her back for carrying. Normally, drawing a blade from the back was dangerous and slow, but her skill more than made up for that.

A man in light armor, gripping his spear with a light sheen of sweat over his face pointed them to a guard sitting at a desk.

"Names?" The man asked, face devoid of emotion, only showing fatigue. Ainzly understood the pains of working at a boring job but held back from commenting.

"Ainzly and Sangria Oras."

The heat in the room increased by several notches, the guards around them shivering from the strange aura that surfaced. Ainzly was too nervous to notice this change, but continued on regardless.

"Are you citizens of the Re-Estize Kingdom?"

"No. After we left the Holy Kingdom, we've been travelling around."

The guard raised an eyebrow.

"The Holy Kingdom? Then… Who is the king of the Holy Kingdom?"

Ainzly smiled. "You mean the queen? Calca Bessarez, if she hasn't been dethroned by the nobles."

"What is the age of conscription?"

"Around 15."

"And why is that?"

"They give us a year to get married."

"Can I see proof of your citizenship?"

"Here are the papers. I doubt it'd be of any use, though. We don't have contact with the Re-Estize, or much with any nation for that matter."

"Your purpose of coming to E-Rantel?"

"We're considering moving here."

The man sighed and set down his notes.

"That should be it. Amon?"

The guard who was looking through their bags gave a thumbs-up, returning their luggage.

Ainzly was surprised at the process. It reminded him of airport security. He knew that E-Rantel was a fortress city, so he expected tight security, but didn't expect it to be logged. From the information extracted from the soldiers, this world was as medieval as it could be; reading and writing was a rare skill that would only be useful for the rich and the nobles.

 _There must be an ulterior motive, then. Maybe they're looking for someone._

Ainzly and Sangria walked through the streets of E-Rantel, exploring the districts of the city. It consisted mostly of residential areas. Arrays of competing market stalls broadcasted their goods, brought in by traders, to the city before them. He carefully observed the life around him, eavesdropping on conversations.

Much of their talk was about their own lives, money and food and whatnot. It provided him information about life as a citizen of the kingdom. What really interested him, however, was the talk about the nobles. From what he had heard, the people seemed to hate and fear the nobles, who forced them to fight against the Empire annually. There was talk of figures they liked— some praising the king, some calling him a senile fool. There was even mention of a "golden princess".

He was cut from his thoughts when he heard a scream of pain, a crowd gathered around the voice. Ainzly sifted through the crowd to see a boy, no older than 10, sprawled on the ground. A gruff man kicked him in the ribs with unrelenting fury. Surrounded by thugs, it seemed that this man was feared by the people…

Amidst the chatter, Ainzly understood the situation better. The crying woman that resembled the boy, the jewelry and expensive ring on the man's finger and the dazed look on his face pieced together to form a story.

 _No need to cause trouble. Sorry, kid, beggars can't be choosers. Wait, how does that even make sense or work at all? I'm speaking Japanese, that's an English expression that died out like a century ago._

Ainzly turned and left. There was nothing to gain from helping the boy. The air fluttered behind him.

"Let's go home, Sangria." He smiled.

* * *

The Pleiades bowed before the guild master, lining up and taking some of his gear to his armory before servicing Shalltear. They quickly parted to reveal Albedo smiling serenely at the duo. As she walked all too perfectly for Ainzly, he felt a chilling aura washing over him.

 _Like a white devil..._

"Lord Momonga, Shalltear…" She trailed off with a hint of distaste. Ainzly suddenly felt a lot more uncomfortable, but the relief he approached was more welcoming.

"I trust that you were successful in managing Nazarick in my absence, Albedo?"

"I believe so, My Lord, I hope that my abilities were up to your standards."

"Good. Why don't you two get ready while I…"

Silent to the outside world, Ainzly felt a wince in his abdomen. It was almost like a growl and he felt a foreign sensation.

 _I'm… Hungry?_

"While I call the other guardians to have lunch with us. Yes, that will be all."

Ainzly turned and left the two surprised floor guardians, chuckling to himself. The guild ring he had been presented with teleported him back to his chambers.

Unravelling his disguise skill, Ainzly prepared the short speech he planned to give to the NPCs of Nazarick. In short, this "lunch" he had arranged was not just a gathering of the floor guardians, but nearly all the NPCs that could attend. This required hours of preparation, replacing area guardians with summons and non-sapient monsters.

Invitations had been sent and Shalltear was the only uninformed. Ainzly felt amused at the confusion the true vampire must be feeling.

 _All thanks to the tailor NPCs, we have a supply of formal dress even for the mercenaries._

He ordered the servants to begin immediately. At once, the halls to the great throne room opened with a grand finality and revealed it to be arranged into a massive banquet hall. The invited NPCs that had been waiting nervously at the hall entrance all trembled at the might of their creators, taking each step as if the hall was a holy ground.

As the NPCs converged into the hall, taking their reserved seats in their humanoid forms (form changing items were involved), Demiurge gave Ainzly the signal for his entrance.

The demon found himself materializing in front of his throne, much to the surprise of many NPCs. They all stuttered and bowed before the sight of Momonga in his full glory, the [Sword of Ainz Ooal Gown] pushing his simplest of auras to an extent that terrified the floor guardians themselves.

"Loyal servants of Nazarick," Ainzly began. "We have been delivered to this New World for a purpose... And that purpose will be our goal from now on, under my authority as the leader of this glorious guild; Make Ainz Ooal Gown an eternal legend! Whatever gods and heroes the insignificant dwellers of this world praise will be replaced with the glory of Ainz Ooal Gown for ETERNITY!"

The collected NPCs roared in approval. Ainzly allowed the bloodlust to die down before finishing his speech.

"From this day forward, I will be known as Ainzly; your demon king and eternal ruler! Onwards to conquest!"

* * *

There was not much else to be said for Ainzly, but to the NPCs it was different. Their leader; their _god_ had spoken and his command was to dominate the world. As they were served the finest of delicacies, the NPCs found themselves chattering excitedly about the new plans. Demiurge, Neuronist, and Shalltear (much to the disappointment of Albedo) shared their master's intricate plans.

It may not have been official, but Carne village and the area surrounding Nazarick was already theirs. The servants chuckled at Demiurge's reports of the New World's military strength. Chances of Ainz Ooal Gown victory against _any_ known military stood at 100%.

The weak inhabitants of the New World were thanked for being a step to Lord Momonga— no, Lord Ainzly, some remembered. He would be a hero to the people despite his intimidating presence, Shalltear explained. Wrathful to those he deemed as enemies, a mastermind of puppeteers, and a merciful ruler; the very image of a perfect king.

Everywhere the NPCs treated and socialized in the event, they could see their master, the Supreme Being Ainzly standing watch over them from his throne like a god. Their hearts were warmed at this sight.

The NPCs were soon acquainted with their first real social gathering. When Ainz Ooal Gown was but a shell of its former self, they worked themselves faithfully to protect the guild and craft items to upkeep the base's expenses. With their intricately crafted personality settings, the NPCs became more real than ever.

The aftermath of the celebration was a sight to behold. Tables that held feasts of legendary creatures and wine aged for centuries in the heart of a glacier— Ainzly was delighted to find that he could eat, but his sense of taste was dull, like his nerves had been fried.

This worried him to no end, but he still appreciated the texture of the food itself. Nonetheless, he had bigger problems to worry about. There was no way to prove that his world wasn't a simulation, so it was best to ignore it for now.

As the hours passed, the NPCs returned one by one to their stations, finding detailed instructions of their next steps in world domination. Aura and Mare were in charge of leading expeditions to map out and control the monster-infested territories around Nazarick. Albedo would continue re-organizing the work structure of the NPCs, providing balance between defence and field work. The librarians were charged with materials research in place of Demiurge, who lead groups of doppelgängers and shadow demons to replace and monitor political figures.

* * *

 _I was too scared to go down and talk… I think their view of me has been lowered now..._

Ainzly reviewed a few of the plans Demiurge put in place, the demon refusing to explain his own plots.

 _Fucker… Well, it looks like we're doing this world domination thing for real. I'm not so sure about our chances, but whatever. We still have a [Guild Relocation Stone], so I can cut teleport us to a safe place if it ever comes down to that._

He would need to find a few good locations, then. Somewhere his potential enemies will never expect or take a while to figure out.

 _Then again, I don't have any good maps. It'll have to wait._

He looked down at the golden blade in his hands. He had entrusted the [Sword of Ainz Ooal Gown] to Aureole Omega after taking the world item under her protection, but Ainzly wasn't so sure about his choice. While her floor did host the strongest NPCs created, some stronger than their creators, it wasn't the most secure out of all places.

 _I'll have to deal with that another day, then._

As he looked at a vacant table being cleaned by the homunculus maids, Ainzly remembered a magic party trick performed by Titus, the head librarian.

Super tier magic was an art available to only players. There were items that contained the over-tier spells, but they were also exclusive to players. It was something of a strange move by the devs, as NPCs depended on orders and had a mediocre strategic AI.

This made most magic-based NPCs weaker than actual mages, so they were not very popular, especially ones that required combinations of many abilities.

 _It can't be [Five Elements Overcoming], but I guess the real problem is that super-tier magic is lost to us. Potentially forever._

He felt a bit… somber at that realization. His spies had begun to confirm the lack of existence of any magic in this world beyond tier 7…

Losing the power of super-tier magic would be a huge disadvantage to the guild. Ainzly planned to have someone— perhaps Demiurge, perhaps one of the librarians and a mage NPC, to research the lost art.

"Lord Ainzly, Narberal will be here to attend to you in a moment, as you ordered. Is there anything else you require?" One of the maids inquired, bowing as her fellow servants left the hall.

"That will be… all." He confirmed, surprised at how much time had passed while he was in his thoughts.

As the halls of the Lemegeton closed with a final thud, devoid of the aura of celebration, Ainzly began to think about something that had been on his mind ever since he reviewed his stats.

 _My race…_

In YGGDRASIL, there were many hidden race and class options out of over 2000 choices. Many of these had not been made public knowledge by any means, but Ainz Ooal Gown had its eyes and ears…

One race that had become popular after the second World Championship series was the demonic parasite race. It was a cousin of the demonic spirit race and the player would have to choose that as their starting race to become a demon parasite. There was, however, a hidden challenge beyond just race level progression.

After choosing the demon spirit race, players would be thrown into the game under less than usual circumstances. Since the demonic spirit was an astral being that only had a few telekinetic and debuff abilities, players entered the game in a human host randomly selected from one of the hundreds of villages in Midgard.

Momonga himself entered the game in a priest's caravan, possessing a village boy. According to his randomly-generated backstory, the boy's mother had sensed something wrong with her child and called the nearby church for assistance.

(The lore of YGGDRASIL involved the corruption of the Norse universe— great spirits and gods from other had fallen into the realm of the Norse, explaining the appearance of out-of-place beings like Georgian demons and vampires.)

The challenge had a simple premise— to obtain 15 demon spirit race levels. Unfortunately, it was much more complicated than that. There was a catch: never abandon the human host, or get it destroyed. Once the human host died or was switched out for a better one, becoming a demon parasite was no longer possible.

The lore behind this process was a slow bonding and replication of human biological processes— the spirit bonded with the host's nerves, muscles, and mana circuits; if this continued, then the host and demon would become one, forming into a real, physical demon, an icon of corrupted sin and emotion. The quest for the demon parasite would have thus failed.

The hidden route could be realized if the demon spirit had a neutral or good karma, something difficult to achieve. It would rationalize its urge to become a demon and instead leak out its demonic essence, forming a shell of demonic power to protect its host— the only thing capable of keeping it alive now that it has bonded. This shell would take after human flesh, but it would be imbued with the properties of demonic energy to become an organic mass of unprecedented power, protecting the human inside.

And then— in a moment of shock, Momonga had acquired the demon parasite race. He would be one of the first to discover it, but at that time, his mind was less focused on that and more on the choices in front of him.

Warrior and mage shell.

The warrior shell took after armor; it was constructed like a set of heavy armor. Players who chose this were thus warrior centered. Mage shell also took after its name. It was a robe-like mass of flesh that had a cape capable of flight.

The race change also meant several other changes to the quality of life. Regular sustenance was now required, so Momonga always brought food items. He did not want to waste a ring slot on basic needs, after all. Sleep, on the other hand, was not required, since the host was basically unconscious inside the shell.

Resistances and race abilities were much better than a traditional demon, but there were some disadvantages. They were extremely vulnerable to exorcisms; anything higher than level 90 and the host would be ejected. The problem was that the demon required the host to live, so it would also die once the weaker NPC host was killed.

The devs did not go much further; the race was mainly done on the basis that it was a cool idea. Its stats were balanced easily with the algorithms developed after more than a century of data collection from various MMORPGS.

Ainzly felt the [Eject Host] skill within him, feeling the chitinous locks on his spine flutter and click as a confirmation that it was operational.

 _In the game, I had a level 80 mage NPC as a host, the highest level he could go to. Should I wake him up?_

He almost never brought out his host— ever since his arrival at the New World, his mind and instincts shunned the thought as a taboo but Ainzly… was curious.

He was a player and loss meant nothing to him.

"[Eject Host]!"

His skin felt hollow, like a shell abandoned. The completion that was within him became no more and his innards felt the rush of cold air. He turned around to face the _human_ _being_ that was the host to Momonga, or rather, Ainzly, leader of the supreme beings of Nazarick.

His curiosity lasted for a split second. His warm thoughts turned cold. His body seized and stopped breathing.

It was him.

Oh, sure, he was a coughing, groaning mess rolling all over the floor, covered in a layer of translucent slime but it was him, all right. With his youthful brown hair, not old like a messy, thin tangle of black, white, grey, and black against seamless milky skin, he was the picture of his youth moment captured into a single being.

It was him.

 **Lvl 3**

 ** **Suzuki Satoru****


	5. Roleplaying With the Self

**Volume 2- Wizard of the King, Pt. 1**

The boy took another sip from a silver flask, wiping away the sweat from his face using a white towel. Despite his ragged clothing, he was being attended to by a maid in a palace-like building, though she seemed to view him with apprehension.

The brown-haired boy gulped down his drink and twisted his gruff expression to an innocent one with his eyes closed.

"Thank you!"

The servant rushed off, dismissed by an armoured hand.

Sitting beside him on an equally beautiful luxurious sofa was a hulking being in jet-black armor coated in darkness. He waited for the boy to finish.

"So, do you remember anything? From your old life, I mean…"

The boy grinned brilliantly. "Nope!"

Ainzly sweated. "Not a thing?"

The brown haired boy twisted his head, as if trying to recall something. "Yeah… I think I was born in this village on the remotes of some religious kingdom. Rai something, I can't remember. My mother… I think she was like Ukina or something. Or was it Asa?"

Ainzly flinched slightly, but stayed quiet.

"Anyways, we've sure got an eccentric bunch of servants, huh?"

Ainzly felt more beads of sweat run down his forehead, remembering the first encounter "Suzuki" had with the NPCs of Ainz Ooal Gown.

 _Two hours ago…_

 _Ainzly looked, shoulders stiff and unable to move as Suzuki slowly stood, shivering slightly in the rags bathed in protein. The clear fluid was produced by the demon parasite to keep its host alive, but in all honesty it wasn't an exactly pleasant mixture._

 _Suzuki coughed and began in a raspy voice. "Y-yo."_

 _Ainzly was cut off from his shock as the throne room doors were thrown open, a figure in white with a melodic voice speaking urgently to him._

" _My Lord! Is this a good time for us to talk about our—"_

 _Albedo, overseer of the guardians, froze._

" _What the fuck is THAT?"_

 _Unsheathing her bardiche, her eyes turned into a look of pure rage, hurtling towards her enemy with barely suppressed killing intent. Ainzly panicked._

"Yeah…" Ainzly trailed off.

"Anyways, our guild is great! It was an entertaining time, wasn't it, fighting off those world gods and eldritch horrors that could end worlds in one swoop? Remember when you got voted to be guild master?"

"Sure…"

"Kicking ass is great too, right? That idiot, Nigun… we put the fear of the gods into him, eh?"

"Uh huh. In hindsight, we should have done a bit more. Specifically, I wanted to test if vampire thralls made by Shalltear would retain their memories. That would have been a convenient source of information, given how the angel summoners easily died under the hands of Neuronist. Skills like [Palm of the Puppeteer], Demiurge's [Command Mantra], and Shalltear's [Dominate Will] should also be used in the future." Ainzly explained.

"Yeah, only the knights didn't have resurrection anchors, so I guess that was a potential information source lost." Suzuki muttered, as if disappointed.

While this was technically a loss to Nazarick, the Sunlight scripture was quickly prevented from resurrection with a death curse from one of Ainzly's blades. Only the highest tiers of resurrection magic could revive them now… and attempting to do so would reveal their location immediately.

One didn't make it to second place in a world championship playing fair, after all.

The boy looked curiously into the ceiling, tapping his chin thoughtfully. "Also, why didn't you turn on any of the [Warrior Spirit] passives? We almost fainted quite a few times."

"W-well, about that, uh…"

"Oh, I know! You must have wanted to train our actual mental strength!"

"Yes, exactly. That's exactly what I intended."

"..."

"I have a few more questions, if you don't mind, Suzuki."

"No problemo!" He cheered enthusiastically.

"How much do you remember of the guild? The types of conversations I had with the guild members?"

"Um… Yeah, I can recall most of 'em. Ulbert, Touch Me, Tabs, Pero… your closer friends are what I would call "iconic". My favourite conversations are about the artistic effort that went into the creation of the NPCs and the base itself, which is interesting. It sure makes me want to be an artist, with how good they are."

"What did you think of them?"

"For the most part, the guild was pretty good. Touch was an asshole, but at least he admitted it. The rest? I thought a few of them were a little _too_ focused on attaining money and power… let's see… Tabula was nothing less than insanity, and I thought Lucy and Ulbert were too hooked on the idea of us being villains. That warrior guy, whatever his name was… Peroroncino and his sibling; many of them were pretty dramatic. Not that I mind, really. It helps bring out the fun!"

"Wait, you said Lucy? You mean Luci-Fer?"

"That's her name, right?"

"Oh, but he was a g-... ok, I see. What I meant was, didn't she sound kind of masculine to to you?"

"Nope. I heard some angels are like that, though, since they are made in the image of some dude god. It must be because you are a demon, so you can hear something closer to her [Divine Voice]."

Ainzly tilted his head, but nodded.

"Huh? Oh, I see. Now, tell me more about the conversations I- I mean, we had?"

"The usual. We talked about pretty casual stuff. Life, money, jobs, monsters. That sort of thing. Yolanda best girl?" He inquired.

"What?" Ainzly blinked.

"Yolanda? The first guild girl we met, remember? Put a bounty on our heads as soon as our cover got blown?"

"Oh…" Ainzly recalled. The memory suddenly rushed back to him, and he took almost a minute of silence to process it.

"So…" The boy leaned back. "Now all that stuff is done, what do you think of this New World?"

"Me?" Ainzly was at a loss. "It seems there are those from YGGDRASIL periodically transferred here. The distinct lack of strength in this world means that even a level 30 would be considered a legend, which means that a level 100 would be regarded as a god-like being. Accounts of these beings appear every other century or so… I've no doubt that many of these claims are in fact describing entities from our world; any being from YGGDRASIL transported to such a weak realm will surely display their power for their own gain… but there are outliers; the cautious may remain in hiding."

Suzuki chuckled. "You really are smarter than she thinks."

"What?"

"Nothing, nothing. Anyways, what's our next step? My memories are always a bit hazy, since we're using drugs all the time."

Ainzly blinked. "Drugs? You mean the stim abilities?"

"Yeah, the not-steroids."

The demon chuckled. "I see. Well, for now we're still gathering information using the doppelgängers and shadow demons. As for resources, we're mainly focused on construction of a few hidden locations to act as farms and warehouses, for gold income and such. YGGDRASIL seeds are taking a toll on the local soil, but with magic that can be fixed."

Ainzly took a sip of his tea and set down the China carefully. For his race, this amount of water was all that he needed for a day.

"We'll discuss further soon. Now, I'm sure you're eager for a change of clothes. Perhaps something to fit your class?"

"Sure. Oh, I just remembered, super tier magic is lost, unless you use [Champion's Expertise] on a super-tier seal, right? I don't know if I can learn super tier, but it's worth a shot."

"You wish to learn magecraft? I can't object to that. It will be helpful if we were both level 100 and able to fight together. Right now, your class is… 2 levels of [Witch], and a level of [Worker], is it not?"

"Yep! Should we do arcane magic instead?"

"That's what I was thinking. We're not in need of an offensive caster, so a support or utility caster with a repertoire of super-tier spells is the best. A summoner is also welcome, given that we can use anchors to make summons permanent."

"Alright. Faith is not very useful because we're all rather low on the karma spectrum and my current eastern witchcraft… that's too resource intensive. I think an arcane support and utility build or an elemental summoner is the best."

Ainzly shrugged. "Your call, ultimately. You can even do both, since you don't have race classes as a human."

"Right. Well, those servants you called should be here any minute now. Seeya!"

As Suzuki hopped out of the room for a change of clothes, Ainzly sighed. He didn't know what was going on at all.

 _Let's review. My level 80 mage host was replaced with a level 3 witch who is also a younger version of me, for unknown reasons. I believe this is related to either my racial lore (which I don't read at all), or being transported to the New World… maybe he is supposed to be the more human part of me._

 _Other than that, "Suzuki" is completely normal. His personality, while bearing some parts of my own, are different, most likely due to us having different experiences. Judging from what he said about a few NPCs, he also seems to believe that everything was alive back in YGGDRASIL._

The demo clutched his hands. He was in a strange situation now.

Should he consider "Suzuki" his ally?

Should he tell the guardians about his situation?

He wasn't sure. What he did know was that somehow, by a miracle of the gods, Suzuki Satoru from the alternate universe of YGGDRASIL managed to become the Demon King Ainzly's host.

* * *

"Albedo?"

Ainzly looked around the room he had assigned to the guardian overseer. It formerly belonged to Tabula Smaragdina, the wacko teammate; that one guild member with questionable sanity.

Ainzly preferred to dismiss Tabula's strange ravings about Cthulhu, cosmic horrors, and insanity as a phase, like his very own eighth grader syndrome that definitely had nothing to do with a Nazi uniform fetish.

"Albedo?" He furrowed a non-existent eyebrow.

He was here for a very specific purpose. After inquiring from Narberal (a loyal supporter of Albedo) of the succubus' possible whereabouts, Ainzly decided to check the demon's bedroom.

"You'll have to excuse me for not knocking… I mean, I _did_ knock, but you didn't answer."

Checking with his [Soul Link] on Suzuki's well-being, Ainzly turned his head to a more secluded section of the room.

And he swore, he looked everywhere. Behind every curtain and under every piece of furniture he cast his perception abilities, mapping out the entire room. His echolocation eventually revealed an interesting hidden door, disguised by the perfect positioning of the furniture that would distract whoever was looking for it.

 _How clever… This is Tabula's room, so I guess he would have designed it like this._

Entering the room, Ainzly first called out to the demon before discovering the hidden chamber to be empty; nothing except a few magical lights. What was curious, however, was a strangely dirty corner that was slowly rotting away.

Whatever was here had been stomped on and spat on for… a long time, he guessed.

 _As expected, none of my seeking skills are activating because she has most likely used an item of some kind. I'll return to the throne room and use the guild weapon's admin privileges to locate her if it comes to that._

Disappointed that he had not yet found anything, Ainzly looked to the last place he hadn't checked.

 _There's no way she's hiding under the bed. No one's that stupid, right?_

Sighing, he considered the possibility that it was a bluff, a result of the overseer's intelligence.

"Um…" he was going to say something, but he abandoned the thought completely.

"Albedo?" He called out, kneeling to the ground and looking to his side. He almost had to use [Enochian], as his gigantic horns were getting in the way.

His eyes widened as he saw the form of the guardian overseer, curled up on the ground and her dress crumbled. The ground was _overflowing_ with tears that descended from the succubus like a garden hose, though she was somehow quiet the entire time. He could, however, see her sniffle every other second or so.

"A-Albedo?" He approached nervously.

There was no response from the demon.

Ainzly felt uneasy. "What's the matter, Albedo? What's wrong? Come on, talk to me."

Albedo sniffled. "L-lord Ainz-" she tried to start, but broke into tears again.

"Ainz?"

"L-lord Ainz-" She tried again, but couldn't finish before crying again.

"Fine. Call me Ainz." He decided, seeing her inability to finish the phrase.

"I-I"

"I'm sorry Lord Ainz!" She cried, unsheathing a shortsword and preparing to plunge it into her stomach.

"Wowowo w-wait a second Albedo! You didn't do anything wrong!" He stuttered, waving his hands frantically.

"I…"

She stopped.

Ainzly felt his stress increase by several layers. "What was that?"

"I-i almost k-killed Lord Ainz." She breathed.

"What?"

"I-I t-thought there was an I-intruder, b-but it really was Lord Ainz's host-" that was when she couldn't hold it anymore and began crying.

Ainzly sweated. "Come on, Albedo. It wasn't exactly your fault."

"Y-you're just saying that for m-me… how benevolent, my Lord, but…" she looked at the blade in her hands again.

"I must do this to forgive myself!" She cried, raising the blade.

Ainzly growled.

 _I've had enough of this..._

"ALRIGHT YOU BETTER FUCKING STOP RIGHT THERE ALBEDO I SWEAR TO FUCKING GOD, I AM NOT SPENDING FOUR HUNDRED THOUSAND OF MY FUCKING HARD EARNED COINS TO RESURRECT YOUR ANGSTY ASS IS THAT CLEAR?"

"M-my Lord?"

* * *

After apologizing for his outburst, Ainzly departed to leave the succubus alone for a while, his panic stabilizers kicking in several times.

 _I swear, I'm going to get a headache from how many times this thing activates._

Fortunately, the overseer picked herself up and seemed intent on following Ainzly to apologize to Suzuki.

 _Phew… Suzuki was very stoic about it, but I can't be sure that's his actual reaction to how Albedo almost killed him._

Ainzly looked back at the demon walking behind him again. He decided to walk to Suzuki's temporary guest suite to give Albedo time to prepare… But also because he himself needed time to think about things.

 _I was originally planning to become an adventurer using my "Momon" disguise… but now that this issue has come up, I first need to level up Suzuki so he can protect himself. There's no doubt about it, all my skills and records have confirmed that he is my host, which I require to live._

The first thing he needed to do was to inform all of Nazarick that Suzuki was not to be harmed.

[Demiurge…]

[My Lord?]

[Are you aware of the full functions of my race?]

[I am, My Lord… I know of every possible affliction the demonic shell race can have, and the exact instructions for surgeries of any kind… I also possess these skills for every type of being in Nazarick, including humans. In fact, I am working on an organ farm for potential replacements if our healing spells prove insufficient to counter high-tier curses.]

[I see… I congratulate you for your forward thinking, Demiurge. Come to me when you have the time to receive a [Ring of Ainz Ooal Gown]. But that's not what I'm here for, Demiurge. Were you aware that I required a human host to live?]

[A-ah! I was not aware, My Lord! I shall begin immediately to work on potential replacements—]

[That's not it, Demiurge. I first need you to spread this information to all the inhabitants. My host, who is known as "Suzuki", is under my protection under the name of Ainz Ooal Gown, which _I lead_. We are to spend resources to improve his magic casting abilities.]

[It will be done, Lord Ainzly!]

Ainzly sighed in relief. The exchange had went on without a hitch. Despite Demiurge's sadism and dislike of humans, it was apparent this personality was for a very rational reason, judging by how he easily accepted Ainzly's announcement.

 _Now… I followed some tips from a book about leadership in the library. The first thing I learned was that getting along with your subordinates is essential. When I think about it, I myself would have appreciated a friendly and encouraging manager, so I guess I'll try it._

He pondered how he could approach Albedo in a conversation, using things he learned from an old university lecture about social science.

 _I have to approach them with a prepared topic I know they enjoy. Albedo, according to her settings, is… a workaholic, but not exactly. She's similar to Tabula, in a way. She acts normally whenever possible, not using her great intellect to come up with grand schemes and betray the supreme beings. She only employs her intelligence when the subject is interesting or necessary to her, though I don't know what those subjects could be… I'll assume it's working for Nazarick to the best of her ability. That will be it, then._

"Albedo. How goes the management of Nazarick? Describe to me your daily duties..."

The guardian corrected her posture quickly. "My Lord, I begin the day by making sure everything is in position for their assignments, and assign tasks to anyone with time. I then review the reports of the lesser overseers, and allot the appropriate budget to each division. I then process all of the major requests, which are sent to me for approval…"

"Excellent, Albedo. Do you enjoy these tasks at all? Do you require breaks? It is not that I doubt your stamina, but for a healthy mind, some time off is always the best."

The succubus shook her head. "Not at all, my Lord. I do not require rest thanks to the [Ring of Sustenance]."

"Hoh, is that so? Be aware that it is a magic item and that we are not aware of potential long-term side effects."

"Huhuhu… Could it be that Lord Ainz is concerned for my safety…?"

"What?"

"Nothing!" Albedo beamed.

Ainzly raised his non-existent eyebrows.

"By the way, lord Ainzly… May I continue referring to you as lord Ainz instead?"

 _What? Is this some sort of test?_

"Of course. I do not mind what you call me."

"Hehe… am I the only one allowed to address you in such a way?"

"Why not. However, you should not do this in front of others. I do not want anyone to believe it is some sort of pet name."

 _Why did I say that?!_

If demons could blush (which they could, but Ainzly ran out of colloquial expressions to use), then Albedo was the apex of that genetic trait. Her blood boiled so that Ainzly could feel the heat touching his cheeks, even through his armor.

"Hehe… pet… Lord Ainz." The demon curled up into a dream-like state.

He shifted in his tracks. "Oi! Stop this indecency! _Overseer_ Albedo, I-i order you to stop!"

 _You've got to be fucking kidding me._

* * *

Eventually the heat of the situation died down and Albedo instantly reverted back to her professional state. The guild ring on her left hand was adjusted to a perfect straight angle and was perfectly polished. The ring of sustenance was on the other and Ainzly busied himself looking at the item, wondering why _everyone_ , including Mare of all people put their magical rings on the ring finger.

"There's something else that's been on my mind as of late, Albedo."

The overseer looked surprised. "What is it, my Lord? Have I done something wrong? If so, I will do whatever it takes to make up for my offense!"

Ainzly chuckled. "Of course not, Albedo. It's something that I've thought long about, and I plan to include in our next meeting, but I require your input."

Albedo smiled. "There is no decision you, Lord Ainz would make that displeases us servants of Nazarick, my Lord."

Ainzly shook his head. "This is different, Albedo. It has to do with the… use of space in this dungeon. More specifically, I'm talking about the rooms and various unoccupied spaces of my fellow guild mates…"

Albedo appeared to be shocked, judging by how her hand went up to quickly cover her mouth. "Y-you mean…"

"Yes. I wish to remove the chambers of the Supreme Beings to save expenses."

The overseer appeared shaken by this new announcement. "I understand your concern, my Lord, but I fear that despite their rationale, many inhabitants will be unhappy with this decision due to their loyalty to their creators."

Ainzly sighed. "Some displeasure will be inevitable, Albedo. But I hope I will be able to convince them."

"I have faith in you, my Lord."

* * *

"Oh, it's you! Hello, Albedo!" Suzuki cheerfully greeted, swaying in his new red robe.

The succubus lowered her head. "There's no need to be friendly with me…"

"Aww… It wasn't that bad, right? You were just doing your job!" He bared his unusually clean teeth in a teasing way.

"You are right," Ainzly stiffened at Albedo's response. "But it should have been my duty to identify the vassals of my Lord."

"But Momonga here's a strong warrior, right? He can put a stop to anything if it ever comes to that."

"I feel the same way, but it is irresponsible for me, a servant born to serve Lord Ainz, to inconvenience him in any way, especially if he has to raise a blade when I am supposed to be his meatshield."

 _They're all getting my name wrong!_ Ainzly clutched his head internally in frustration.

In that moment, Ainzly thought back to his previous conversation with Albedo, where he agreed to be addressed as "Ainz" by the overseer.

He also recalled a skill he had— [Memory Safe], which allowed him to view his host's memories. He did not know, however, how these two events were connected.

 _Does Suzuki have that ability as well?_

"Oh? If it really bothers you that much, then Momonga should decide your next course of action."

"I will have to object to that." Ainzly broke in. "As Albedo is the overseer of the guardians, she would serve Nazarick better in her current position."

"But she would be more at peace with herself, right? As a _servant_ , she should feel better if her guilt was accepted instead of dismissed." Suzuki argued.

Ainzly thought he saw Albedo's lips twitch downwards for a moment, but then she was smiling serenely again. The demon turned to look up at Ainz with a pleading expression.

"Lord _Ainz_ , he speaks the truth! I am ready willing to accept _any_ punishment you decide…"

The conversation did not stretch on much more after that. Ainzly promised to think of an appropriate punishment for Albedo and both parties finished without dispute.

The apology to Suzuki thus went off without a hitch. Both Albedo and the boy smiled calmly as they left, though something… was off with the exchange. Ainzly just couldn't help place his finger on it; he felt that Suzuki would have acted with a slight hint of awkwardness, but there was none in the village boy who had his life taken away by a demon.

 _I'm sure it's just my paranoia, as usual. It looks like they're getting along fine._

"So, I assume you wish to be addressed as _Suzuki_ , not Satoru?"

The brown-haired boy nodded. "Yep. Satoru's my last name and I want to be called by my first name since it feels more… casual, I guess."

"I see." Though he seemed to show understanding, Ainzly was conflicted on the inside.

 _When I was on earth, my first name was Satoru and my last name was Suzuki, not the other way around. I wonder what this means… maybe he got it wrong?_

"Are you, are you sure? You said your memories were blurred and I'm about to register it in the next meeting, so I don't wish to get anything wrong."

Suzuki shook his head. "It's all good! I can remember my own name, all right! My memories haven't deteriorated _that_ bad."

Ainzly nodded. "My apologies."

While Suzuki was currently dressed in a beautiful gold-and-red royal garb, they were about to select something more fitting for combat.

As they walked, Ainzly realized that he could have just given Suzuki a [Ring of Ainz Ooal Gown], but his mind quickly corrected himself. He did not want to put off any NPCs that were against humans by giving a worshipped treasure to someone no one had ever met until now, even if that someone was his host.

He wanted the NPCs to build a respectful view of Suzuki, after all.

As they chatted on the way there, Ainzly was relieved that there was finally someone he could talk to casually for once. Despite the presence of the Eight-Edge Assassins, he made them swear to never divulge the information he discussed with Suzuki to anyone… except the other Supreme Beings. He didn't want to be seen as suspicious, after all.

It was interesting, he supposed. In the past, he had gotten used to having little social interaction, because he had entertaining tasks to focus on, like solo-hunting and endless hours of PvP to help upkeep the guild's expenses. He had even taken up streaming once, managing to bring in large sums of in-game money until his viewer base ultimately plummeted due to the game's population decline.

But now, he was under pressure from the flashy entourage of guards that surrounded him at any given moment, and he was not contributing much to the guild at all.

 _I ordered the construction of farms and warehouses to bring in coin, but the NPCs would have come up with that without me. I could honestly do something more useful than order people around._

As they came upon Ainzly's suite, the two abandoned their bodyguards and were immediately accompanied by several servants, who each bowed before opening the door for Ainzly, slightly glaring at Suzuki.

Ainzly accepted the gesture by lowering his head, while Suzuki gave a carefree mock-bow before moving on. Some of the servants took this as a sign of offense, but quite a few took the move as charming. The demon ruler pretended to not notice the antics and stood still on the circular platform, waiting for the elevator to descend.

 _That reminds me, I should pick a cape while I choose some gear for Suzuki._

In the game, he did not bother with getting a cape or cloak accessory. They counted either as a part of the armor or a stand-alone cosmetic item and did not really contribute to a better build. He initially wanted to get one, but YGGDRASIL favoured many aspects of realism. Horns on helmets could be grabbed and used to disable an opponent. This was why the armor around his horns were wide and sharp; if the enemy tried to exploit it, they might take damage from the sharp edge and his [Hellfire Horns] skill.

The reason players like Touch Me could get away with having a cape was due to cosmetics bought with real money— those did not have hitboxes and did not count as part of the armor.

While Satoru could certainly afford such a cape, he thought he could pull off a unique look without it.

 _Now that I think about it, kings all seem to wear capes._

As they reached his armoury, Ainzly inspected the golems that maintained it, watching their smooth, robotic movements that cleaned every corner of the structure. Dust was infrequent here; as he noticed in the dwellings of higher-leveled NPCs. Lower ranked beings had weaker cells in general and would refresh them more often, creating most of the dust that collected on floors. Demons like Ainzly, however, had skin cells healthy enough to survive getting blasted by several hundred holy orbital lasers.

 _I like the sound of that… Just think of it! "Go! [Holy Orbital Laser]!"_

"Um… We going or not?" Suzuki looked curiously at the demon, ignoring the glares from the servants.

"U-uh, of course. Let's get going." Ainzly muttered, breaking out of his daydream.

Turning instinctively towards the more magic oriented section of his personal treasury, Ainzly began his explanations.

"We'll begin with some cash items that don't have a power restriction. In this world, level requirement works differently. The further the user is away from the item's level requirement, the weaker the item's enhancements are and the less abilities they can use. Even if we were to give you a high-level robe, you would not be able to use it effectively.

"While we haven't decided on if you'll become a summoner or utility-based caster, starting out as a [Sorcerer] is best, since we have items that make up for the penalties."

"Wait, you said I should learn more about the spells of this world, right? According to statistics, [Wizard]s are more adept at learning new spells and developing their own magic."

 _He's right. Ah, I keep forgetting to take lore into account. I guess reading those lore books really wouldn't hurt now._

"Excellent! I congratulate you for your forward thinking, Suzuki. A new tenth-tier spell wouldn't hurt for Nazarick!"

The boy smiled sheepishly and rubbed the back of his head. "Hey, it's not like your suggestion was worse. Sorcerers do have generally more casting power, after all."

Ainzly chuckled. "Now, now, we shouldn't be distracted. We'll start with this."

The demon tapped a glowing ring on the pitch smooth black walls. The structure shook into action, a rectangular section of the door sliding out and folding open like a closet to reveal rows of strange trinkets attached neatly to the surface. There was a spring coil, several plastic toys, office supplies and several unrecognizable and crudely labeled objects.

Ainzly plucked an item from the storage. It was a small vial sealed with a wooden cork, the contents of which was a finger sized glowing green crystal. Ainzly removed the seal carefully and handed the object to a birdman servant.

"Add hot water to the vial and have Suzuki drink it."

The birdman clutched the air before him and pulled out an electric kettle. This item was called the [Kettle of Infinite Heated Water] and did exactly what it said.

With effects only a magic item could have, the green crystal began dissolving into green motes of light in the warm water. The birdman squawked and served the item to Suzuki.

Ainzly scanned the drawer for more items of use. The item he had just given Suzuki was the cash item [Class Reset I]. While getting killed to reset one's levels was more cost effective, they did not know exactly how respawning would work here.

Ainzly frequently had to tweak his build before an unfavourable matchup or just to prove his theorycraft, so he had a whole stash of cash items devoted to respeccing. Additionally, it was tedious to kill himself— his HP was simply too high and Ainzly liked to believe he was a man with dignity.

The respecc item he had just given Suzuki did not replace classes, but was a cheaper item that erased the XP entirely. This was because Suzuki was too low leveled anyway— giving him even a 300 yen consolation prize would be considered a waste of money.

 _That makes me sound very cheap, doesn't it?_

He grabbed several more items, including a [XP Booster I] before closing the low level the cash item closet. Ainzly walked from storage to storage, retrieving several vital early-game items. Eventually, the servants grew irritated and offered to obtain the items for him, to which Ainzly reluctantly agreed.

"[Magic Backpack]... [Infinity Compass]... [Potion Injector]... [Mana Charm]..."

The items he chose were mostly either utility items or universal cash items. One specific item was a gacha prize— a yellow wizard's robe that gave only minor (level 13) boosts to magic, but had several utility skills and gave its user's magic attacks a yellow cosmetic effect.

In other words, the items were almost completely worthless to all except the newest of players, but they could be equipped by those of any level.

Suzuki happily stored the items away into his inventory and he was even given a [Magic Safe] for any of his personal effects… it was empty, to say the least.

Now decked out in a flashy yellow robe, the boy put on a brown pointed hat— also a cash item. When asked about the effects of the XP-reducing cash item, Suzuki reported it as a strange sensation— like he had lost something.

He then promptly lost most of his skills in eastern witchcraft. He could recall all the rituals and spells and skills, of course, he could still use a talisman, but his skills all lost effect and he couldn't cast any spells. They all came out instead as a fizz of mana.

His body also became more frail due to the level loss. The only reason he had not collapsed was due to Ainzly's internal nutrition distribution system. The clear fluid was potent enough that a droplet could feed a grown man for a day and over time the amount of energy increased their physical attributes. Suzuki was almost always submerged in that fluid, like an unborn child.

"Alright… I'll be starting the class change." Suzuki declared.

Ainzly watched with interest. He did not know how the NPCs would view the level system, especially the beginning class selection scene.

 _This would also help point me towards whether or not he's more like a player or NPC._

He blinked in surprise as a yellow screen popped up in front of him. No, not Suzuki, _Ainzly_. The demon looked curiously at the translucent screen, seeing no reaction from any of the NPCs.

 _Only I can see it?_

Before him was something that resembled the game screen, almost like a follower manager tool. On it laid ordered lists of class names. They were labeled similarly to the game, but it seemed more basic compared to the starting screen. There were also tabs which organized the classes into magic, warrior, rogue, and other categories, and each category also had its subsections. Magic, for example, had four basic categories: arcane, divine, mental (eastern), and other. Each of these sections also had different categories. Divine, for example, had a category of beginner classes for paladin-related jobs and also a section for priest-related classes.

In the game, after choosing a starting class, a player would receive the corresponding beginner level gear and a small amount of money, along with a few starting skills or cantrips and an optional randomly generated backstory. NPCs did not receive this screen and were born loaded with levels. For followers and clan servants, the owner player would choose their build as they accumulated XP, just like a player.

 _It's some kind of follower manager, then, but it doesn't seem like the full thing. I haven't used one for a while, so I wouldn't know._

Tapping on "magic", Ainzly selected "arcane" and chose [Wizard]. In an instant, the screen was dismissed from existence and there was a strange glow around Suzuki. Ainzly sensed the boy's mana pools grow slightly, though the exact amount was an unknown. His magic related stats also increased by about two points.

"How are you feeling, Suzuki?" Ainzly questioned.

"I feel… I don't know, strange? Arcane magic is still new to me. I gained a bit of knowledge about it, but I don't think I learned any cantrips, like you did."

Suzuki was referring to Momonga's first steps into the game. He had initially wanted to play as a crusader human (inspired by his edgelord nazi phase), but after much consideration he thought a skeleton overlord wouldn't be half bad as well. He yet again changed his mind when he heard about the [Spirit Spellsword], a class that used mental-type magic and melee weapons. It was the eastern counterpart to the paladin. Eastern magic was less popular than arcane, so in a world where individuality was oppressed, Momonga wanted something different.

So, he had not started as a full-on warrior. As a [Spirit Spellsword], he had been able to cast mental-type magic before his transformation into a demon parasite. The reason he abandoned magic was because he enjoyed melee combat more and felt weak compared to the full-on warriors.

"That's not an issue. I have a few cantrip tomes here, but we'll be heading to the treasury to now for the rest of your equipment. Golems?"

The automaton servants heeded his response.

"Retrieve all of the arcane cantrip tomes here."

For the sake of saving time, Ainzly ordered a [Gate] to his location and the pair headed for the treasury.

* * *

As Ainzly heard Suzuki bid farewell to the servants behind him, the demon stared up at the entrance to the treasury.

 _Oh right, my NPC's here! I was so stressed about other things that I totally forgot about him._

Looking to the maid that was on duty in the area, Ainzly deposited his [Ring of Ainz Ooal Gown]. The girl was baffled at the sight of Suzuki and was slightly nervous.

 _It seems Demiurge's news hasn't spread out yet. Oh, right, the next break for the maids hasn't happened yet. That must be why she hasn't heard about Suzuki._

Ainzly was interested at the opinions of the servant NPCs on the outside world. The most iconic ones like the floor guardians were your human-hating monsters, but servants like the maids actually feared the outside world due to previous invasions on Nazarick.

Suzuki treated the nervous servant as he did with any other and Ainzly was not sure how well it worked, seeing her mixed reaction. Ainzly retrieved a [Gas Mask] and a [Hazmat Circlet] from his inventory and handed the items to Suzuki. He himself had already donned the necessary protection from poisons.

Soon, they were upon the treasury itself. Literal mountains of gold filled the halls of the treasury, the ceilings reaching so high that even for Ainzly, who had enhanced vision, had to do a double take.

 _Wow… it's even more impressive now that it's real!_

In his heart, he couldn't help but feel a little pride for every treasure he saw that had a tale behind it. It didn't matter if it was a failed or abandoned project, stolen from others, or looted from city invasion events, he felt at home.

 _I'm among a treasury of memories…_

Suzuki seemed to share some of his enthusiasm. He would point out the items that Ainzly had fought for or found, bringing back many memories from his earlier days of the game, some even before meeting Touch Me.

 _I totally forgot… but what did Suzuki mean when he called Touch an asshole? He wasn't that bad, right? I mean, he never got along with Ulbert, but he didn't treat me poorly. Could Suzuki be referring to Touch Me driving out Beholder?_

He was not sure. Ainzly, however, thought it really wasn't the time to talk about that and should wait until Suzuki was settled down. He also feared for Suzuki's well-being— speaking poorly of the guild members usually went badly for the offender.

"We're close to the mausoleum." Ainzly noted to the distracted boy.

Entering the hall of the "dead" brought back many unpleasant memories and Ainzly averted his eyes from the poor imitations of his guild mates.

"Yeah… I'm not exactly an artist either." Suzuki reminded the demon.

Ainzly pushed open the door to the inner treasury to reveal a large room that was almost like the reception to a museum, except with a much more… luxurious tone. At the centre of it all stood a Knight in beautiful platinum armor that was adorned with a red cape. The visors that allowed vision out of his helmet was not unlike that of a masked hero.

"Pandora! We're home!" Suzuki yelled, as if pretending to be a mother returning to greet her child after shopping for groceries.

"Pandora?" He yelled.

At the doppelgänger's lack of response, Suzuki mocked a distressed tone. "Where are you, Pandora's Actor?"

 _Um…_

As if only now noticing the knight in the centre of the room, Suzuki began a more theatrical act. "Oh no! A strange man is in my house and my son is nowhere to be seen!"

 _What?_

Suddenly, the armoured figure that was the knight was no more. In his place was an… egghead, for a lack of a better term. It was dressed in a 4th Reich Neo-Nazi uniform. With hollow eyes and mouth not unlike the visage of a carved doll, the one thing that separated it from a toy was its grotesque claw-like hands.

Said doppelgänger bowed dramatically. "Welcome, my creator, leader of the Supreme Beings and esteemed Suzuki, with words that charm us at every turn! My eyes are teary and I rejoice at the return of king and host… but what purpose might your great visit to my humble abode mean for the future? Could it be..." He swirled around dramatically.

"Could it be… you wish to arm Suzuki, host of the king, with the ways of the mage? I see the robes of and the gears of an adventurer on him!"

 _He's kind of…_

 _Lame._

Ainzly resisted the urge to massage his armoured forehead.

 _How do they know each other in the first place?_

"My creator?" Pandora's Actor asked, slightly apprehensive this time.

"Nothing, nothing… but you are correct. We are here to retrieve some gear for Suzuki. Also…

"I was thinking of a cape or cloak to suit my future public appearances."

"Ooh! Ooh! I will select you the finest of garments myself, my creator! Let me serve you to the best of my abilities!" He cried.

 _No… why is he like this!_

"Of course, Pandora's Actor. I trust your judgement. Return to me once your task is fulfilled."

 _Why am I encouraging his behaviour?!_

Suzuki chuckled. "That's right! Best son will select a good cape!"

 _What?_

The neo-nazi bowed deeply.

"Let us be off! Ask and I, Pandora's Actor, loyal servant of the Fuhrer, will complete!"

The shapeshifter ran off, leaping dramatically in circles like a ballet dancer. The stunned with shame Ainzly slowly took his eyes off where the NPC disappeared into a mass of cosmetic items.

 _And here I was, thinking about an appropriate greeting. It wasn't necessary at all._

Sighing, Ainzly summoned the appraisal eye and ordered it to highlight the items with the specific data crystals he was looking for. The legendary class cash shop item activated one of its skills and a green wave of light, not unlike that of a scanner from science fiction, scanned over the treasury. Without any findings, it moved to another area and the next.

Suzuki watched he item with interest. "Handy, isn't he?"

"Indeed. It's well worth the fortune it costed."

The appraisal eye was a modified cash item originally called the [Old One's Gaze], which could appraise items and any hidden skills in them. It was combined with another cash item, the [Toy Radar], and a legendary-class relic, [Alarm Eye]. It was finally infused with several utility data crystals to maximize its effectiveness.

"I suppose I don't need to explain to you the workings of the items you have? You've been wearing them for a while now and the passive appraisal should have kicked in, right?" Ainzly asked.

"Yep. They have pretty good stats for cosmetic items."

"Hoh… do you think there's any merit in infusing it with the higher-tier gear you will eventually use? Disguising your attacks is a useful thing to do."

"Well, the effect is passive and can't be controlled unless I have [Magic Item Comprehension III]... It would confuse our enemies, that's for sure, so I think it's a good plan."

"Also, we'll probably change your current scheme, too. I apologize for the clown suit of items." Ainzly explained.

It was true. The items on Suzuki's body were mismatched in a fashion sense. Combined with the plain-looking cash items, he looked ready to perform in court as a jester.

"It's good! I'm not going out anytime soom, so it won't matter."

As the appraisal eye found one of the items— a bright golden sceptre with a red gem embedded to the top. Ainzly picked up the highlighted item and his summon rushed off to find more.

"This summoning sceptre is called the [Dance of the Elementalist]. Contrary to its title, it's not an elementalist's weapon, but rather a staff that allows the _summoning_ of lesser to greater fire elementals. Your current level won't allow you to summon any, but keep it for now."

While Suzuki would start out as [Wizard], the class could be converted to other ones, such as [Arcane Caller] later on. Not only was this the most convinient option, Ainzly wanted to see if "talent" applied here. Were YGGDRASIL beings capable of taking any class as long as their build allowed it, or was there a cap?

 _People here have a much lower level cap. Unless they have the [Genius] or [Talented] modifier, most people can't even reach level 15 on novice classes, much less progress to the next class. The stronger people (after analyzing the local adventurers) take two or three similar classes, with 2-8 levels in each. It's a decent way to build a character, especially if you don't have many levels to spare._

Suzuki whistled and juggled the sceptre in his hands, wavinng it around until he accidentally burned his hands on the fire gem.

 _Self damage, huh…_

The boy smiled sheepishly as Ainzly took a medicinal herb from his inventory and rubbed it on Suzuki's slightly charred hands.

"Careful with that thing, your [Magic Item Affinity] isn't high enough."

"Got it!"

Chuckling, Ainzly picked up another highlighted item and then several more. They ranged from powerful recovery items to robes to staves, and each was stowed into Suzuki's inventory. They were all mid-to-legacy tier items and were brought out now for convenience.

"But most importantly, Suzuki, are these two items." Ainzly held them out in his hands.

In his left hand was a necklace. Well, necklace was a generous word. Shackles would have been the more accurate term to describe the silver chain with a glowing blue stone attached to it. The stone itself was locked away in a miniature box of reinforced clear crystal.

"This here is a teleportation anchor linked to me, with six charges a day. Once it's activated, it'll teleport you to my location, or away to a "safe" location of my choosing, since I have the better reaction time out of us two. This will get you out of any unfavourable situation."

In his right hand was a hand-sized figurine of a knight in full plate armor. The metal was a pale dark grey with pale yellow edges. Ainzly squeezed the item in his hands and it dissolved into cracked pieces and dust.

"This is called [Knight's Cowardice]. Watch."

The cracked pieces that fell to the floor suddenly rose and in a split second they had enlarged and teleported to encase his body. Ainzly now wore the figurine's armor.

"While you're wearing it, no attack skills, weapons, spells, or items can be used, but your speed and health will rise dramatically— essentially becoming a tanky speedster. Every debuff and attack will allow you to move faster. It's perfect for escaping. You're still a rather low-level mage, after all. You won't be able to win many fights, regardless of equipment."

Suzuki nodded. "With the exception of world items. Remember that guy?"

Ainzly stopped, as if to think. He slowly nodded. "Right. That guy."

Suzuki was referring to an incident where the GMs gave a world-class item to a new player for giggles— and Ainzly turned out to be the unfortunate victim. It was arguably the most embarrassing death in his history of playing YGGDRASIL.

 _I was just trying to test the income of the [Bandit] class… well, I made my revenge, alright._

Ainzly responded to the move by raiding the city where that particular player respawned. The local clan was wiped out by the flames of vengeance and the respawn points taken. That new player was then spawn-camped until he quit out of frustration.

"Good times, Suzuki. You know, with what I did… did we go too far?"

"Nope. As Ulbert would put it, we're the 'demon gundam' of this guild— acting like anything less than a benevolent dictator is a sin! I don't even know what half those words mean!"

"That's a fairly accurate assumption. But I don't want to go on like those 'supervillains' Ulbert keeps talking about. I'd do anything for Nazarick, of course, but needless slaughter only tarnishes our reputation— to say nothing of the more… morally responsible inhabitants."

"Yeah. This place has grown on me, too. Wouldn't want to see someone like Sebastian betray us."

"Sebastian? You mean Sebas Tian? Oh, I see… I'm not very good with western names, I'm afraid."

Suzuki grinned. "Sly bastard, wasn't he, that Touch Me?"

"Hoh, indeed. I'll admit it though, I admired him at one point. After meeting him, I believed there could be such a thing as a hero."

"What a sham that turned out to be."

"I'd rather not talk about my comrades and in extension, _your_ comrades this way, Suzuki. They're gone, aren't they? Even if they're alive, out there somewhere, I'd keep the good memories to heart."

As Ainzly himself walked to inspect a blade, Suzuki retreated to his thoughts, the voice so quiet it was barely a mutter.

"... to think that even everlasting beings such as players can die…"

* * *

 _It's surprisingly easy to pretend that I'm familiar with this guy,_ Ainzly thought.

 _With this conversation, I was able to find out more about how he thinks of everyone. His karma is at a steady 0– complete neutral and it's reflected in his personality. He doesn't think Demiurge or Neuronist is evil, or believe that Aureole is "good" or idealistic._

Did karma really affect personality? He decided to use himself as a comparison. For Ainzly, his biology certainly prevented him from truly caring about morality on a deep level, but he did not feel his karma was affecting him at all.

 _Carne village, for example. I only truly believed I should save them to test my strength and to appease Sebas. My new biology easily rejected my moral compass by showing me there was more at risk if I intervened in what was clearly an incident involving a nation. If Karma affected me, I would have preferred to simply slaughter and rape everyone like Shalltear._

His decision to save the villagers for his own gain was more in line with what a neutral evil character would do, but he was at a karma rating of -300, which was "great evil". The game lore compared this type of evil to those who would kill and… cause pain for no particular reason.

 _But I didn't. So I want to assume that personality is what matters in the end. Karma appears to affect certain opinions regarding others and moral matters. For example, those with negative karma should have a negative opinion of those positive karma and vice versa. More testing is required, as the lore book doesn't seem quite consistent here._

He activated a time stop and wrote down his thoughts into a notebook— "Changes to the System." It mainly recorded his experiments of the changes to YGGDRASIL's mechanics, such as magic and skills and how the NPCs responded to them. His first entry recorded the exchange with the twins about friendly fire. Aura had accidentally activated her [Forest Breath] skill and Ainzly could smell it, though it didn't affect him at all. The twins were then baffled when Ainzly asked them why it was attempting to attack him, who was a friendly.

 _Friendly fire. At least I don't specialize in aura or AOE skills… otherwise I would probably accidentally kill an ally if we fought in a team._

While he was pondering how fortunate he was, Ainzly was struck with an unsettling thought.

 _If Ulbert ever comes back, that means he won't be able to cast his spells right in our faces anymore. That means several strategies out of the game already…_

Shaking his head, Ainzly went to check on Pandora's Actor.

"That should be everything we need now, Suzuki. Let's check on Pandora's progress."

The trek back to the mausoleum was silent, both figures thinking deeply about the former guild mates as their figures looked over them.

"What do you think Pandora will pick? I think it'll be something we like. After all, he's our creation, which means he carries some of our tastes and personality."

"I somehow doubt that. I made Pandora during a… different part of my life."

"I think he's grown on his own since then, to be honest. Even though he didn't get abandoned by his friends [given that he has none], new tastes don't develop from nothing. He should be on to something."

"That's being hopeful." Ainzly replied dejectedly.

 _Pretending to be familiar with this guy is really easy, since he thinks we're good friends._

"Don't be so down, man. If it doesn't work out we can just change his settings!"

Hearing those words made a chill run down Ainzly's spine.

 _That's an interesting way to look at something that's intelligent and alive._

They stood in Pandora's office, Ainzly with his arms crossed as they waited for the return of their "son".

 _My god, this is embarrassing. I hope he doesn't see Suzuki as his mom or something._

This thought was uncomfortable at best. He was going to be teased endlessly with gay couple jokes, wasn't he?

 _He's literally my alter self. Calm your slash fanfics!_

He felt like banging his head into the wall.

* * *

 **A/N: Cut! So, how do you guys like my depiction of the young Suzuki Satoru? Did you pick up on those hints? To answer some questions:**

 **First, no, this isn't the pairing. If I was going to ship Momonga with** _ **himself**_ **of all people, I would have advertised that. [LOGIC ERROR] is the best girl, I swear.**

 **Second, he's here because of Ainzly's race. His demon parasite race requires a human host to live and vice versa, but since his host in the game had no backstory settings (imagine making an NPC and not giving it any settings), it was filled with** _ **him**_ **instead.**

 **Third, this gives Ainzly a helping hand, but doesn't drastically increase his power. Suzuki must stay in the radius of Ainzly every twelve minutes, or they will both expire. If Suzuki gets damaged, then Ainzly will receive de-buffs (including death) and vice versa. This means against a high-level opponent, fighting together is very dangerous for Ainzly because despite his warrior classes, he has no protection skills since he is a PvP and PK specialist.**

 **Last thing regarding power: Suzuki will eventually become a level 100 mage, but he cannot cast super-tier spells.**

 **Response to Reviews:**

 **UGANDAN KNUCKLES: Despite your sinful name, I thank you for your kindness. Perhaps even devils can be kind.**

 **TheGreatBubbaJ: Momonga is** _ **terrible**_ **at naming things. He wanted to be a cool demon king. I will change it back if there's enough complaints.**

 **gearblade: and good**

 **sonic: Gotta go fast!**

 **Lair of the East: Oops. I'd like to talk to an AU version of myself, though. Maybe he's a musician. Maybe he's a prostitute. I'd like to know.**

 **Lapis: WHAT? NANI LAPIS TELL ME ARE YOU OKAY?!**

 **shiroyuu012: None taken! Thanks for the compliment. I'll consider changing it then, would be funny to do a scene where everyone is cringing at his new name and he finally changes it to Ainz.**

 **Guest: Fascinating— someone likes my writing?**

 ** **guest: Ainzazel is a bit too far into the realm of stealing names. Ainzly doesn't want to be recognized as a YGGDRASIL player for now since [Azazel] is from earth. No one in the NW knows what Christianity and Judaism are, so it's Ainzly for now.****


End file.
